


Tell me all your weaknesses

by marshmallowfluff



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Humor, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Romance, BAMF Stiles, Developing Relationship, Evil Hunters, Fluff and Angst, Hunters Vs. Pack, Hurt Stiles, Kidnapped Stiles, Kidnapping, M/M, Past Allison Argent/Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Post-Season/Series 03, Pre-Slash, Protective Derek Hale, Snarky Stiles, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallowfluff/pseuds/marshmallowfluff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stiles did not normally start his afternoon with a stranger in the back of his Jeep, telling him to ‘Be quiet and don’t do anything stupid, or you’ll never see your precious father again.’”</p><p>Stiles isn’t very good at being quiet, and when has he ever not done something stupid?</p><p>In which Stiles is kidnapped by a Hunter with a vicious streak and a penchant for torture, and Derek (and Scott) is having none of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell me all your weaknesses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyshalina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyshalina/gifts).



> My first addition to the fandom, and much-belated birthday present to a fantastic friend.
> 
> This oneshot contains exorbitant amounts of fluff and adorableness for a fic about kidnapping, torture, and its aftermath. 
> 
> Any and all feedback it greatly appreciated.

Stiles started most afternoons by waving goodbye to Scott as his best friend zipped off on his dirt-bike (which was definitely compensating for something, but Stiles hadn’t yet figured out what), then driving leisurely back home, maybe running by the station just to make sure his dad was okay (yeah, Stiles was a bit paranoid), doing his homework (because even if Scott had let his grades slip by the wayside in all of his teen-wolf drama, Stiles had not let anybody’s lycanthropy intervene with his 4.0 GPA), and then preparing a heart-healthy meal so that it was hot and ready when his father came back from his shift (because then the Sheriff had no excuse to go buy take-out).

What Stiles did not normally start his afternoon with was a stranger in the back of his Jeep, telling him to “Be quiet and don’t do anything stupid, or you’ll never see your precious father again.”

Stiles sat frozen with his hands on the steering wheel, eyes trained on his rearview mirror, reflected in which he could see a young woman sitting in the backseat. She was wearing a navy blue pencil skirt with a low-cut tee-shirt, her legs were crossed and in one hand she was lazily twirling a deadly-looking arrowhead that Stiles was almost positive was laced with wolfsbane. Her hair was sleek and silky and curled, her makeup done to perfection, and Stiles wouldn’t have been surprised if the reason she had slipped into Stiles’ car was to ask for a ride to a runway show, except that no model in her right mind would want a ride from “Stiles” Stilinski, and also she was holding that wolfsbane arrowhead.

Something about the woman’s coy smile and the flirty way she cocked an eyebrow as she told Stiles that his father would be dead if he didn’t do exactly what she said, reminded him of Kate Argent, and if the arrowhead and the automatic crossbow he could see resting on the seat next to her was anything to go by, the two women were probably very similar.

Stiles would have laughed if he wasn’t trying very hard not to scream. Or yell. It would really be more of a manly bellow. Don’t listen to anything Scott says, the boy is full of lies.

“I’m not generally known for giving in to terrorists,” Stiles said, keeping his face as blank as possible because he was pretty sure that if he didn’t, the overwhelmingly terrified expression that would show instead would probably make him look a little weak. “And you guys can’t threaten me with my dad while he’s on shift with his Deputy, because I know Hunters have that strict moral code and don’t like witnesses.”

The woman rolled her eyes and smiled a little crooked smile with her perfectly painted red lips, shaking her head. “Oh, Stiles. You underestimate us.” She leaned forward, setting her hands in her lap and subtly using her upper arms to squeeze her breasts together, accentuating her cleavage. What, was she trying to bait a seventeen-year-old boy into allowing himself to be kidnapped with her boobs? Because it might have worked, like, _last_ year, when Stiles was a mere child. But Stiles had matured since then. He had body hair. He shaved at _least_ twice a week now. It was very impressive.

The woman smiled sympathetically, as though she wasn’t taking a sadistic pleasure from informing Stiles that she was about to be using terrorist tactics to make him do things. “We know about you and your… quirks,” she said, saying the word “quirks” as though she was saying the word “weaknesses”.

“After the _tragic_ death of your mother, you took over the homemaking. You cook all of your father’s meals in cholesterol-free, low-fat, portion-controlled servings. You seem to be very concerned for his health.” She gazed piercingly into Stiles’ eyes through the mirror. Stiles glared back. “Well, I’ve done some research and it’s funny, but it seems as though your father has no health risks. He doesn’t have high blood pressure or cholesterol, no family history of heart problems. In fact, there seems to be no reason at all for you to micromanage his eating habits.” She smiled at him. “Unless, of course, you have an intense, irrational fear of losing your last remaining family member.” She leaned forward and spoke in an exaggerated whisper. “A fear that might not be irrational at all. You know, what with his dangerous line of work.”

Stiles carefully controlled his expression, but could feel his body tense and his hands clench slightly on the steering wheel. The corners of the woman’s mouth twitched in mirth, and Stiles was sure that she had noticed his reaction.

“Now, maybe you’re right. Maybe your dad is on his shift with this deputy, having a calm afternoon in his cruiser. Maybe there are plenty of witnesses where he is to stop any attempt on his life. And maybe the Code will stop any Hunter from killing an innocent human.” The woman leaned forward and her smile grew a little bit as she continued. “But maybe, just maybe, the Sheriff’s deputy missed work today because he was exposed to aconite poisoning and had to go to the hospital. And maybe your father was called out of town to the abandoned distillery on an anonymous tip. And isn’t it possible that maybe the Hunter in charge of his assassination is not averse to killing a human if it will help our organization to attain valuable information?”

She smiled as Stiles’ knuckles turned white with the strength of his grip on the steering wheel.

“I think I know you, at least a little bit, Stiles, and you’re not the kind of boy to gamble your father’s life on all those maybes. So how about you shut up and listen to what I tell you because if you don’t, you father ‘might’ die, alone and _very_ slowly.”

Stiles’ tongue flicked out to wet his lips. He felt a bit dizzy.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, his voice cracking. “Bitch,” he added spontaneously, because he felt weak giving in with no fight. The woman smiled at him and at that moment, Stiles wished he was _something_ , anything, so that he had weapons other than snark. A werewolf like Scott or a master of bow and arrows like Allison or even a druid like Deaton so that he could overpower the woman in the backseat and maybe even tear her limb from limb. Just not a banshee like Lydia, because he personally didn’t see the appeal in finding all of the dead bodies.

“Well,” the lady Huntress said, “Stiles, my name is Angela, and I would like you to exit the parking lot and then I’ll point you the way from there.”

Stiles did what she asked because he _wasn’t_ a werewolf or a weapons expert or a druid, and he didn’t really have much of a choice because he was a weak human with squishable, breakable parts and his father was also a human with squishable, breakable parts, and Stiles didn’t want his or his father’s parts to be squished or broken.

He pulled out of his parking space and waited in line to get out of the parking lot, ignoring Greenberg, who was waiting next to him in a battered truck and gaping at the beautiful Huntress in the back of Stiles’ Jeep, staring between Stiles and Angela as though he couldn't possibly fathom how to explain a pretty older woman in Stilinski’s car. Stiles felt mildly insulted. He could _totally_ have as many pretty older women in his car as he wanted, and they didn’t even have to be Hunters who wanted something from him. He had charm. He had charisma. No, really.

Once he had pulled onto the road, Stiles drove at a constant speed, hands firmly on the steering wheel, face blank and eyes trained on the road. Because while Stiles may be known for his eccentric mannerisms and his tendency to flail and to gesture emphatically to enforce the importance of his statements, he was not known for being exceptionally strong or capable in dangerous situations. Sure, he could act tough and swing a baseball bat and use sarcasm to disguise his fear, but the actual beating and mauling and defeating of villains was mostly reserved for Scott and his wolfy abilities. Stiles had survival instinct and no claws or fangs to speak of, and so instead he chose not to show his fear so that he seemed as least like prey as possible. Angela wasn’t a werewolf, but Stiles thought it would work just as well: she was certainly acting like a cat that had trapped a mouse.

At the very least, if Stiles was the mouse and Angela the cat, Scott and Derek would be the dogs that charged in to tear the cat limb from limb. Hopefully ignoring the mouse in the process.

As he drove, Stiles thought that maybe Angela would be leading him into the forest, maybe to an abandoned building, or maybe even to the Argents’ house, but she directed him right past every viable Hunter hideout in town and on through the lonely forest road and past the city’s border.

“Where are we going?” Stiles finally asked when they were thirty minutes out of town and Stiles was very sure that there was no getting out of whatever he had gotten himself into.

“I’m sorry, honey, but that’s classified,” Angela said in a voice that was mock-apologetic. “Take a left up here and pull over into that Circle-K.”

Stiles did what she told him to. It was a small gas station, with only one other car in the parking lot: a green minivan. It looked innocent enough until Stiles parked the Jeep and a suspiciously overdressed man with a gun holster inconspicuously hidden at his side under a black overcoat climbed out of the passenger seat and stood in the parking lot, staring at him stoically and making him generally uncomfortable.

“Get out of the car, and bring your keys,” Angela said, lifting her bow from the seat next to her and taking an arrow shaft, screwing the arrowhead she’d been playing with onto the end of it and loading the bow. Stiles raised an eyebrow at her as he clambered out of his car, Angela following him and directing her crossbow at his head.

“Seriously?” Stiles asked, gesturing his disbelief by raising his hands and jerking his head. “We’re like thirty minutes out of town, I’m alone and surrounded by Hunters and completely unarmed, and you think it’s necessary to aim a freaking crossbow two inches from my skull?”

Angela smiled apologetically and turned up her eyebrows. “I’m sorry, Stiles,” she said, “But we’re just being careful. Please give your car keys to Michael.” She nodded to the man in the overcoat, who stepped forward and stretched out his hand, which shifted his jacket and revealed a rather cruel-looking serrated knife in a sheath next to the pistol.

Stiles shook his head. “What? No! Why?” he asked, protectively wrapping his hand around his keys and positioning his arm behind his back. They already had him, why did they need his Jeep?

“Because he’s going to be taking it somewhere else,” Angela said, “And unless you’ve forgotten my lovely crossbow, which happens to be aimed at your temporal artery and will not miss, I suggest you hand them over.”

Stiles debated internally whether it would be beneficial for him to take an arrow to the head in exchange for keeping the keys to his Jeep, before he realized that the crossbow probably wasn’t necessary and that Angela could definitely take the keys from him in about two seconds with very little force and he wouldn’t be able to stop her. So in favor of retaining his dignity, or what little of it he had left, he slowly stretched out his arm and allowed the Hunter in the overcoat to take the keys and walk past him. Stiles watched the man get into _his_ Jeep and _his_ driver’s seat and start the car, and Stiles watched him pull out of the parking lot and drive away, on in the direction Angela had been directing Stiles in before.

Stiles thought quickly. If he wasn’t continuing on in his Jeep, and Scott and his other wolfy companions followed the trail of witnesses who had seen his Jeep, they would end up following a car that did not have him in it. That was a detour that Stiles couldn’t afford. He had to find some way of letting them know that he had gotten out of the Jeep at the Circle-K with more of a clue than just his lingering scent.

One of his shoelaces. His shoelace on his right sneaker had been getting pretty raggedy lately. He knew that with enough force, it would break off. And that would be enough for Scott, or at least Derek, to realize that he was trying to tell them something.

He moved slightly to step on the shoelace with his left foot. Then, with a movement carefully disguised as a clumsy stumble, he stepped forward with his right shoe and the shoelace end broke off.

Though he wanted to smile in satisfaction, he made no movement to alert Angela or any other Hunter to his accomplishment. He just hoped that Scott would get his message and its intent.

“Come here, Stiles,” Angela said, leading him to the minivan. If he did so with a bit of enthusiasm, it was only because he was excited that she hadn’t noticed the bit of shoelace that he was leaving behind. That was something to be celebrated. Something to talk about at parties sometime in the future when he was no longer in the process of being kidnapped by Hunters.

Someone slid open the door from the inside and Angela nodded for Stiles to climb in and sit in the seat, after which the Hunter who had opened the door graciously duct-taped his wrists to the armrests. “Now, Stiles, we’d really appreciate it if you’d remain silent. It’s going to be sort of a long car ride and we don’t want it to be interrupted by your famous babbling.”

“Really?” Stiles asked. “Because usually people want to fill long car rides with interesting conversation and I happen to have a very large repertoire of interesting factoids. You interested in the origin of aquifers? Never fear. The evolution of pesticides? I got it. The history of the male circumcision? I’m your man.”

Angela smiled. “And if you’re interested in spending our little road trip with duct tape on your mouth and a bag over your head, by all means, keep talking.” She climbed into the driver’s seat and set her crossbow in the passenger seat, while the other Hunter settled himself next to Stiles with a dagger held conspicuously in his hand.

The minivan started and Stiles glared out of the window as they pulled back onto the road and started heading in the opposite direction of where his Jeep had gone. They started driving back towards Beacon Hills before taking a ramp onto the highway, and soon the car was headed away from his home and his dad and his pack of werewolves at seventy miles per hour.

He thought of his Jeep, headed in a totally different direction, and Stiles knew that there had definitely been people who had noticed the Sheriff’s son’s Jeep driving out of town, and when people noticed he was missing and people started looking for him, they would try to follow the trail of people who’d seen his car, and Stiles would not be at the end of the trail. Instead, he would be wherever the homely-looking family-friendly minivan was taking him. He prayed to every god he could think of that Scott or someone really would find his shoelace and figure out what he was trying to communicate, because if no one did, it would take a very, very long time for him to be found.

Stiles wouldn’t normally stay quiet in this situation, because all of his instincts screamed to annoy the hell out of his kidnappers until they were frustrated and distracted enough to make a mistake (and people thought his tangents were pointless), but he knew that if his mouth was taped and a bag put over his head he would not only not be able to see, but he'd probably end up having a panic attack and faint (and no, there was not a manlier way to say it, he would faint), and what he needed to do was keep track of where the minivan was taking him so that on the slight chance that he managed to escape, he could give Scott directions to where to pick him up. And Scott was horrible with directions, even with the GPS, so Stiles would have to keep an eye out for interesting landmarks or certain restaurants so that his werewolf best friend could follow the scent of McDonald’s or White Castle.

Stiles wondered if his dad was out of danger by now. It couldn’t have taken more than an hour to go to the distillery and check out the tip. He was probably either back in town by now or on his way, and besides, Stiles had cooperated, so he was almost definitely safe. If he had ever been in danger in the first place. But Stiles wouldn’t think about that; he would have never taken the chance anyway. His train of thought drifted to wonder what was going to happen to him. If the Hunters were taking him this far from his hometown, he could guess that he wasn’t about to be killed and dropped in a ditch, which could have really just been done in his Jeep outside of school, if they wanted to. Which meant one of two things: Stiles was the bait for an elaborate werewolf trap, or they were going to use Stiles to get information on the Hale pack, or even on True-Alpha!Scott. He could almost certainly rule out the werewolf trap, because they could just have easily have used him as bait ten minutes out of town as two hours away. So he was probably going to be interrogated. And since he was at the mercy of practically Code-less Hunters who wanted information that Stiles was definitely not going to release, there was about a 5 in 6 chance that they were going to be using less than savory methods to get it from him.

Stiles’ thoughts flickered to a dingy basement, his lacrosse gear heavy and the joy and adrenaline from winning his first game quickly fading and replacing with fear as Gerard Argent beat him up to make a point. A point that had, technically, never been made, because Scott didn’t know about it. Because Stiles wasn’t about to let a geriatric beat him up to give his best friend a message. He’d much rather Scott just believe that Stiles had been ganged up on by a couple of the opposing teammates.

But Allison’s grandpa had let Stiles go after he had enough bruises to make a statement. Hunters with a mission, Hunters who wanted _information_ and not just to teach Scott some sort of twisted lesson, were probably not going to just let him wander away home after they had thrown him around a little. Especially if they didn’t get the info they wanted, which Stiles was not planning to give. Stiles thumped his head back against the headrest and let out a little “ugh” sound in frustration, which was the most that had left his mouth in longer than he cared to think about. Stiles was going to have to wait until Scott came to save the day, wasn’t he? With all the precaution the Hunters had taken in taking him to their hideout, wherever the hell it was, plus the fact that Scott wasn’t the best at critical thinking and was sort of a doofus, Stiles was betting it would take a while.

Stiles began calculating when exactly it was that his friends would realize he was missing. His dad’s shift didn’t end until seven, which, if the clock in the front of the minivan was correct, wasn’t for about another hour and a half. And even after he came home to find Stiles and the Jeep absent, his dad might assume that he was at Scott’s house or on a grocery run. It would take at least another thirty minutes, maybe an hour for the Sheriff to think to call Scott and ask him when Stiles was coming home, and Scott would get a little worried and text Stiles’ phone, which was in his backpack in his Jeep. If Stiles hadn’t responded after ten minutes had passed, Scott would call Derek to see if Stiles had stopped by on a research run, and when Derek didn’t know where Stiles was, Scott would go out to look for him. It would take at least an hour before someone told Scott or the Sheriff that they’d spotted Stiles’ Jeep leaving town, and when Stiles hadn’t answered his phone for maybe another ten minutes, that was when they would finally come to the conclusion that Stiles had been kidnapped.

So by Stiles’ best estimate, people would realize he was gone in about three and a half hours, and by then he would have been missing for almost six. And then the wolves would follow his Jeep and eventually find that they’d been barking up the wrong tree, so to speak, because Stiles wouldn’t be in it, but in a green minivan in the opposite direction.

Basically, Stiles was screwed.

“How are you doing, honey?” Angela asked him, which was the first thing she’d said directed at him since they’d first gotten into the minivan.

“Peachy,” Stiles replied.

“Good,” Angela said. “We’re here.”

The minivan was pulling into a large paved parking lot, and they had to be kidding, because it _looked_ like the parking lot of a fancy high-class hotel, and would they really interrogate Stiles in a posh hotel?

Angela parked and turned around to smile at Stiles.

“Devon, would you be so kind as to release our guest?” The Hunter next to Stiles nodded and turned, using his dagger to cut Stiles’ wrists free of the duct tape. Stiles rubbed his wrists, which were pale from the pressure and slimy with sweat. He wrinkled his nose at the feeling but relished in his freedom of movement. That is, he did until Devon shoved him out of the minivan and pressed the blade into his lower back and started to lead him by knifepoint to the hotel entrance.

“Are you sure about this?” Stiles asked. “I mean, it’s not like I can’t just shout ‘help, I’m being held at knifepoint’ to the hotel staff. You’re not being very subtle.”

“I wouldn’t be too worried about that,” said Angela, smiling. “I own this hotel.”

It figured that his kidnapper was gorgeous and wealthy as well as sadistic. She was probably influential too. Like a rich, sexy socialite who had dinner parties with John McCain and Mitt Romney to discuss the next step in their plot to scam North Korea into a nuclear war.

As the Hunters led him through the giant glass double-doors into the lobby, Stiles filed the hotel’s name (Silver Leaf Hotel) into his mind for later. You know, for when he magically escaped and found a pay phone to contact Scott. The hotel was well furnished and pretty, and not at all where Stiles had expected to be taken; the luxurious rugs, polished hardwood flooring, and masterfully painted ceiling didn’t quite match the image in his mind of a Hunter’s secret hideout. Which he supposed was the point, because it would be the last place any of the pack would expect to find him as well.

A poised blond receptionist smiled from behind the front desk. “Welcome back, Miss Arbor. Your room is waiting.”

Angela Arbor. Arbor. Trees. Silver Leaf Hotel. Stiles had to hand it to Hunters, their names tended to have some sort of hidden meaning. And alliteration with the letter A. Allison Argent, Angela Arbor.

“Thank you, Victoria. Please call Anderson and let him know we’ll be up in a few minutes. Tell him to have everything set up.”

“Yes, Miss Arbor. Right away.” Victoria smiled glowingly at Stiles as Devon pushed him past her after Angela, and Stiles could almost have believed that she was innocent and genuinely had no idea what was going on, but Devon wasn’t even trying to hide the knife digging into Stiles’ lower back and Angela was still holding her crossbow, almost lazily swinging it at her side.

Stiles was forced through plush hallway after plush hallway lined with glittering mirrors and paintings and expensively carpeted. Stiles knew that making a run for it would only leave him with a knife in his back or a crossbow bolt in his shoulder, but he was almost tempted to do so because he wanted to leave a bloodstain in the fancy carpeting out of spite.

But he decided against it because being hurt as little as possible seemed like the best option. Also, a hefty dry-cleaning bill wouldn’t be much of an injury, if the hoighty toighty atmosphere of the hotel was in any way representative of the depth of its pockets.

They eventually stopped outside a hotel room door and Angela smiled before knocking on it a few times. A few moments later, it was opened and a surly-looking man was glaring at him. Behind the man was what looked like a hotel room with no furnishings, no bed or television and scuffed hardwood flooring. In the center of the room was a sturdy-looking wooden chair with ropes twisted around the arms and the front two legs. He winced at the thought of the rope burn he would have.

“Is talking still out of the question? Because I’m starting to feel like it’s a good time to talk you out of whatever it is you’re about to do. I’m pretty good at finagling myself out of sticky and potentially bloody situations.”

“You can talk,” Devon growled from behind him, the first words Stiles had heard come out of his mouth the whole time. “We want you to talk. We want you to tell us _everything_.”

Stiles swallowed and licked his lips nervously. “Starting from which time period? Because my extensive knowledge only goes back as far as 500 BC. If you want to know what happened _before_ the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, you’re going to have to find another guy.”

One of the Hunters in the room laughed and Devon pushed Stiles inside until he stumbled and Angela caught him.

“Smart guy, huh,” the Hunter said. He twirled a knife in one hand and beckoned for Angela to bring Stiles closer. “We’ll see if we can knock that out of you.”

Stiles licked his lips and stood stiffly for a moment. The potential for serious injury hadn’t seemed very real until now. Sure, he’d had a crossbow with an arrow nocked and pointed at his head, and he’d had a knife threatening to puncture his spine, but until right then, facing a room full of homicidal Hunters and about to be strapped to some sort of torture-chair, he’d had some sort of faint hope of escape or rescue.

He had no doubt he’d still be rescued. At some point. In the relatively near-ish future. After he’d probably already sustained several painful injuries.

Angela grabbed Stiles’ arm, and he panicked, yanking his arm out of her grip and darting back out of the still open door. At least, that’s what he would have done if Angela didn’t have a grip of steel. Her hand tightened around his upper arm instead of loosening, and he yelped in pain as she twisted his arm behind his back.

“Don’t run,” she cooed into his ear. “You can wait here for the big bad wolf to blow the door down.”

Stiles was yanked over to the chair and forced into it, and his wrists were tied tightly to the arms of the chair as he struggled. Angela bent onto one knee to tie his ankles to the chair legs, and he shuddered as he felt her breath warming the denim against his thigh. She grinned up at him wolfishly, and yeah, he was ashamed to sully the word “wolf” in reference to a Huntress, but there was really no other word for it.

“Sit _tight_ ,” Angela told him with a final yank on the rope. She straightened up and motioned towards Devon and the knife-happy Hunter, and they both moved towards Stiles with dark smiles resembling grimaces.

“I’d rather _knot_ ,” Stiles retorted, responding in kind to her pun. Angela smiled delightedly.

“Oh, you’re going to be _fun_.”

Stiles nodded. “My friends mostly call it annoying, but yeah, let’s call it ‘fun.’”

“Ah, yes, your friends. Refresh my memory as to which pitiful outcasts you devote your time to.”

Stiles frowned at her. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t voluntarily handing over any information he wasn’t sure she had.

“Oh, mostly Sam and Dean,” he said. He heard a faint scratching sound and looked past Devon to see a Hunter sitting at a low wooden desk in the corner, scribbling into a notebook. He almost laughed at how ridiculous it looked, at how out of place it was amidst the tall, menacing men with heavy weapons and the sleek, terrifying woman in front of him.

“And they’re in your grade, right?” the said terrifying woman asked coyly, leaning over and conspicuously squishing her breasts together like she had done in Stiles’ Jeep. Stiles stared, because he was a teenage boy tied to a chair and since now he wasn’t in any danger of steering off a road, he wasn’t about to give up a willingly given view.

Stiles slowly shook his head. “No, they’re older. Early thirties.”

Angela looked intrigued. She nodded encouragingly and tried not to show her interest. “What are they, Stiles? Werewolves, like Derek? Are they in his pack?”

Stiles licked his lips quickly and shook his head again. “Nope. They’re demon hunters. Sort of like you, but different in a better way.”

The Hunter with the notebook continued scribbling furiously, but Angela looked slightly confused, rather than interested. “What?”

“Sam and Dean Winchester? _Supernatural_? Never heard of them? See, when you watch TV for long enough, you start to feel like you _know_ the characters.”

The room was silent for a moment, and then Devon’s fist slammed into the side of Stiles’ face. His neck cracked with the force of the blow, and his cheek burned as he gasped, clenching his eyes shut in anticipation for another punch.

“Don’t play with me, little boy,” Angela hissed. “I’m no fool like Chris Argent. I’m an Arbor. Hunting has been passed down to me through generations of expert werewolf killers. You may be human, but I will show you no mercy. You run with werewolves, and they?” She nodded to the burly Hunters standing around her. “They don’t like that. And me?” She leaned forward, her eyes stony and cold. “I _despise_ that.”

Stiles flexed his jaw and looked back up at Angela. “I’d be more inclined to listen to you if it had been your fist hitting my face, and not your henchman’s.”

Angela shook with fury and lashed out, grabbing Stiles’ hair and yanking his head back so that he was staring up at her, neck straining and jaw tense. “Tell me what I want to know. Who is in Derek Hale’s pack?”

Stiles tongued at the raw flesh on the inside of his cheek where it was cut by his teeth. He grinned up at Angela and shook his head. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”

Angela’s fury was palpable. She released his hair and took a step back, only to ball her hand into a fist and throw it squarely at his eye. Her hit was even stronger than Devon’s; Stiles’ head snapped back and the chair skittered a few centimeters along with his momentum. He felt something wet dripping down his chin and when he flicked out his tongue, he found that it tasted like iron and then immediately felt stupid for not realizing that, duh, he’d gotten wailed in the eye, of course his nose was bleeding.

She leaned forward, a little too much into his personal bubble, and gave him a flirty smile, again using her upper arms to push her breasts together, as if that was her go-to for coercion when she wasn’t using violence. Stiles scoffed at how incredibly tacky it was, especially with it being her third attempt. As if that was going to work on him. She’d already tried it two times, and where had that gotten her? Stiles was insulted, so he did the only reasonable thing.

Angela leapt away from him with a gasp of disgust, staring down at her chest and looking appalled. “You _animal_!” she screeched, curling her fingers into claws and shaking with fury at the impressive gob of bloody saliva that Stiles had spat into her cleavage.

“Three points!” Stiles exclaimed, grinning as blood dripped from his chin onto his chest.

Devon stepped forward menacingly, raising a fist, but Angela held up her hand and shook her head. “No. _I_ will deal with him.” She walked stiffly over to the table where the note-taking Hunter was sitting, staring wide-eyed from Stiles to Angela, and picked up a grimy towel, which she used to wipe the blood and spit off of her boobs. Stiles felt a moment of grim satisfaction that quickly dissipated when she picked up another thing from the table: a silver dagger.

Stiles lifted his hands from the arms of the chair as much as he could seeing as his wrists were bound to them, trying for a placating gesture. “Hey there, I can see you have a lot of anger. Let’s talk about our feelings. Violence is never a healthy way to express yourself.”

Angela twirled the blade between her fingers and stalked towards him, elegant even despite the loogie that Stiles had just spat down her shirt. He cringed away as she walked behind him and draped her arms down over his shoulders, nuzzling her face into the side of his neck and turning to whisper into his ear, warm breath ghosting over his cheek as his eyes watched the dagger, which was scratching down his shirt.

“Really? I’ve always found violence to be a very efficient form of stress relief. The only person’s health you should be worrying about here is your own.”

Stiles let out a shuddery breath and nervously licked his lips as she slid the dagger under his collar. It was so close to his carotid artery that he could practically feel the blade moving up and down every-so-slightly with the pumping of his blood. Then, she jerked it down, cutting easily through the fabric of his collar. Stiles had a moment to consider how sharp the blade must be if it could cut through cotton as if it were paper, before she used her hands to tear the front of his shirt open, baring his chest to the surprisingly comfortably air-conditioned room.

Stiles wasn’t a werewolf. Unlike Scott, Derek, Isaac, or Taylor Lautner, Stiles didn’t have some sort of weird compulsion to remove his shirt at every opportunity. It wasn’t because of his body image or low self-esteem or any shit like that. It was true, yeah, that hanging around with a bunch of half-wolf men on steroids who all possessed immaculately sculpted abs did tend to make a guy start looking a second time in the mirror at his not-exactly-flat stomach, but fuck if Stiles was going to give up his curly fries for anything less than the apocalypse. Maybe not even then.

No, Stiles just preferred to keep his shirt on and very much intact because, unlike werewolves who had freakish magic muscles (those abs had so not been there _before_ Scott was turned) and super-special healing abilities, Stiles was vulnerable to stuff like punches and cuts and _weather_ , thankyouverymuch. Maybe Scott and his always-hotter-than-normal werewolf temperature was totally cool with whipping his clothes off at all times of the day and night, but Stiles personally preferred having protection against the forces of nature. Not only that, but no matter how thin, clothes did tend to defend a little bit against bludgeoning and battery, two unfortunate occurrences that happened a lot when one ran with werewolves.

Last but not least, let’s not forget the fact that, sure, when one is encompassed in a comfortable shell of T-shirts and flannel, one is susceptible to slashes and cuts from knives and such; but one is _much_ more so without. An attacker could get _very_ creative with a dagger when the victim was unclothed.

Stiles yelped in protest as Angela pushed the sleeves of his shirt over his shoulders and down his arms as much as she could with his wrists attached to the chair and only the front of his shirt sliced open. He was left with his stomach, chest, shoulders and upper arms bare, shivering involuntarily not at the temperature, but at the heavily armed Hunters staring at him, feeling extremely exposed.

Angela moved slowly around to stand in front of Stiles, keeping her dagger held to his chest and retaining a safe enough distance that she wasn’t in danger of another loogie, unless Stiles was planning on turning into a llama anytime soon. Stiles decided that he wouldn’t mind being bitten by a werellama if it meant that he could projectile-spit right in Angela’s smug face.

“Now Stiles,” Angela cooed. “I know this is very difficult for you. I can’t imagine the power Derek must have over you, how scared you must be to betray his pack. But I can promise you safety. If you give us the information we want, we’ll protect you from his wrath.”

Stiles could have laughed, so he did. He scoffed, spitting a bit of blood out so it dripped from his mouth onto his chin. “Lady, are you being serious right now? You held me at arrow- and knife-point as you forcibly coerced me into driving towards my own kidnapping, stole my Jeep, bound me to a chair and punched me in the face, and now you’re trying to play ‘Good Cop?’ You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’re holding a freaking _dagger_ to my chest as we speak.”

Angela grimaced slightly. “Tell me. Who is in the Hale pack? Classmates of yours? That ridiculously angel-faced Lahey boy that trails after him like a lost puppy? What about that doe-eyed best friend of yours? He looks stupid enough to let a ‘wolf take a bite out of his ass.”

Stiles waved his hands as majestically as he could without lifting his wrists. “Those are not the droids you are looking for.”

Stiles braced himself for another punch, but instead felt a sting as Angela began methodically cutting the knife through the skin of his chest, just below his clavicles. He hissed and tensed, not moving because he didn’t want the dagger to go any deeper than it had to. He looked down at the cut and couldn’t see much through the blood except for a few zig-zagged lines. They weren’t deep, but they looked purposeful.

“Every question you do not answer,” Angela growled, “I will add another letter, and each will be deeper than the last. Now, _how many are in the Hale pack_?”

“Over nine _thousand_!”

Angela moved forward to carve what was apparently another letter into his skin. “Insolent boy. You will learn that running with wolves will get you nothing but pain.” Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “Where does Derek Hale live?”

Stiles looked away from his chest and from the blade in Angela’s hand. He was starting to feel woozy. He didn’t like blood. At least it wasn’t needles.

“We’ve got a doghouse out back with a little sign on the top that says ‘Big D.’”

This time, a clenched male fist collided with his jaw as Angela started to cut yet another letter into him. Devon stood above him to his left, teeth gritted and eyes dark, his knuckles smeared with Stiles’ blood.

“Werewolves are monsters,” Devon snarled. “You are sinful to protect them.”

Stiles huffed a laugh. “Why Devon, those are the most words I’ve heard so far out of your dense mug. I’m shocked you can string more than one syllable together.”

He was backhanded by Angela, who brought the bloody dagger up to Stiles’ face, holding it to his cheek. “Do you _know_ how Hunters view scum like you, you who dare to defile nature and affiliate with beasts? Murder, animalism, _bestiality_. You are less than human to us, boy. You have tried my patience for far too long.” She brought the blade back down to cut another letter before asking the next question, the letter deeper than the first three. Stiles groaned in pain and clenched his hands into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms. “What are Derek’s plans? How many does he plan to turn?”

Stiles gasped through the pain in his chest. “Well,” he said, voice rough, “On Saturdays he usually has plans to go clubbing. And if you’re talking about turntables, sorry, he stopped DJing a while ago. Interfered with his moon cycle.”

Devon hit him again, this time in the eye that Angela had punched previously. He could feel it beginning to swell shut as Angela began to cut again, a series of straight and curved lines that felt like fire. He felt blood running down his chest now, a lot more than before. He struggled to bite back a scream.

Angela leaned in close, her mouth once again at his ear, lips brushing against his earlobe and Stiles felt disgusted as her breath moistened his cheek. “You are scum,” she crooned. “No more human than the animals you run with. Now tell me, Stiles, do you really want to do this? How far are you going to take this? What will you do, just to protect a pack of rabid dogs?”

Sucking in a shaky breath, Stiles tensed away from Angela’s glossy lips. “Nothing,” he confessed. “Nothing, normally. But they promised me a Klondike Bar.”

Angela pulled back and stared Stiles coolly dead in the eyes for several moments. Then, she leaned forward and bent to his chest, using the dagger to carve whatever remaining letters of the intended word was needed, digging sharply into Stiles skin, sending pain spearing through his chest and down to his stomach as he felt blood run down his front, tickling the dark hairs below his navel and soaking into the waistband of his pants. It hurt like a mother, and Stiles couldn’t help the pained shout that escaped from his clenched jaw. He arced his back in pain before he heard Angela take a step back and felt a fist connect solidly with his chest, square on top of the bleeding wounds there and knocking the breath out of his lungs with a _whoosh_. Stiles gasped, choking as his throat constricted, and Devon backhanded him across his cheek with force enough to snap his head to the side, and then, just as quickly, he received an uppercut to the bottom of his jaw so strong that his chair toppled over backward. Stiles felt the pit in his stomach that came with a sudden fall as he tipped backwards, and a moment later the back of his head connected with the wooden floor with a crack and he lay there, dazed and disoriented, still bound to the chair and blood running freely down his face and chest. The blood on his chest had begun to flow sideways along with gravity, and he could feel it trickling into his armpits, which was pretty gross because no one liked having blood congeal in their armpit hair.

He gasped as the ceiling above him blurred, and he blinked slowly in an attempt to regain control of his vision. He felt a heeled shoe come into contact with his chest, and gazed dizzily up at Angela, who was standing with one foot grinding into his knife-inflicted wounds and furiously burning eyes staring into his face. He was so out of it he didn’t even realize that he could see up her pencil skirt out of the corner of his eyes. Blood from his nosebleed was pooling in his ears.

“You think you’re funny. Let me tell you, Stiles, no matter how _funny_ you are, we will get you to talk. We can keep you contained in this room for days, cutting and beating you until you finally relent. So this is how it’s going to go. You answer my next question, and we will untie you. We will treat your injuries and give you water and let you rest for a while, until you are ready to tell us everything.” She twisted her foot, disturbing his cuts and causing him to gasp. “If you do not answer me,” she said lowly, her voice deadly, “We will contain you here in torment until you break. Be assured, no matter your choice, you _will_ talk eventually.”

Angela snapped her fingers and held out her hand, and Stiles saw Devon hand her the towel from before. He watched her use it to wipe his blood off of her hands and off of her dagger. She handed both items back to Devon before leaning down, lowering her head until her hair hung over him, brushing against his forehead.

“Stiles,” she said in a voice that was soothing, yet held an undercurrent of malice. “What is Derek Hale’s weakness?” She placed her hands on his chest, digging her fingernails into the cuts below his collarbones. He gasped and tried to shrink away, the back of the chair (and the floor upon which he was lying) keeping him from doing so. Fresh blood welled up under her cruel fingers. “Answer me,” she hissed.

“Okay,” Stiles sobbed. “Okay, okay, okay.” Angela removed the pressure and smiled down at him, stroking down across his stomach and smearing his blood down his torso.

“Good, Stiles. Good boy. Tell me. What is his weakness?”

Stiles forced himself to meet her eyes, taking a heaving breath, his chest shuddering and his head aching in pain. He spit blood out of his mouth and it dripped down the side of his cheek into his hair. “Derek… his weakness…” he scrunched his eyes shut and allowed his chin to quiver as he felt a throb of pain in his chest. “It’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. They’re like fucking _heroin_ to him.”

There was a silence in the room for several long moments. Then, in a deadly calm voice, Angela spoke. “Devon. Give me the matches.”

 

 [ . . . ]

 

Stiles had calculated that it would take his friends a little over ten hours after he was kidnapped to realize that he had been taken. That might have been so, except for a series of small incidents, which didn’t normally occur and otherwise wouldn’t have been very important, except for that they all accumulated to Scott talking to Greenberg three and a half hours after school had been let out.

The first incident was that Allison woke up late. This had only happened to her once before during her time at Beacon Hills High, when she meant to hit the snooze button and accidentally turned off her alarm instead, only to be shaken awake fifteen minutes later by her father. She was at school on time, but she had forgotten to brush her teeth, and she had been dating Scott at the time, and Scott had noticed. Sometimes, she’d hated dating a werewolf. There was no wiggle room in personal hygiene.

This time, she had awoken late because the previous night, Allison had been to the shooting range (the forest in her backyard) to practice with her new automatic bow, and she’d been so determined to perfect her aim that she’d been up well into the night before she returned to her room to sleep, where she then fell into bed without remembering to turn on her alarm clock. That morning, she had awoken not to her dad shaking her, but to her phone buzzing on the table next to her bed. She had turned over and read the text from Lydia, which asked her where she was and informed her that she was missing first period, and Allison had promptly panicked.

Allison had readied herself for school in record time, remembered to brush her teeth, and sloppily tied up her hair as she raced out the front door to her car. She had arrived at the high school eight minutes later and was able to make the final half of the first period.

Second period, however, she searched through her backpack to find her geography textbook, only to realize that she had left it on her desk at home in her rush to leave the house.

Allison had a remedy to the situation and sent a quick text to Scott, informing him that she was going to his locker to borrow his geography text book, but that she would return it during lunch. Scott had geography in the afternoon. So she went to Scott’s locker during passing period, remembered his combination, and took his geography book along with her to third period.

The second incident was that there were two people absent from third period geography, because that morning Jacob Levin had taken a left without yielding to Rachel Schroeder, and had therefore gotten into an accident. While neither were seriously injured, Jacob had needed a cast for a fractured wrist and Rachel’s mother’s minivan had been totaled, and the two had taken the day off. The two, unfortunately, just happened to be the class partners of Allison and Greenberg, and so, when the geography teacher asked for the class to turn into pairs to discuss the chapter and work with each other on a worksheet, Allison and Greenberg had been forced to partner up.

Allison completed the worksheet and attempted to be patient with Greenberg as he talked to her while completing his own. He showed her funny pictures from the textbook and laughed at the stupid jokes he made, then, when the two of them were done, attempted to balance the two books upright against each other like a tent. When the bell rang at the end of the hour, the books slipped sideways and thudded onto the desk, and Allison grabbed one as she gratefully left the room to return the book to Scott’s locker.

The third incident occurred when Scott forgot to get his geography book from his locker for fifth period, and so instead asked Stiles if he could look off his. Stiles was only too happy to allow his doofus of a werewolf best friend to share his textbook, with only minimum teasing at how his lycanthropy obviously hadn’t improved his memory. The result was that Scott hadn’t noticed that Allison had accidentally grabbed Greenberg’s textbook, instead of Scott’s, as she left the classroom.

The fourth incident had actually occurred the previous week, when Greenberg had decided that in order to get himself through the school day without dying of boredom, it would be smart to stash a few pornographic screenshots into his books so he could distract himself when the curriculum became too dull. Because of this, Greenberg now had a printout of a topless young model and two printouts of a sexily posed Harley Quinn stuck in between pages 72 and 73, and pages 96 and 97 of his geography textbook. Which Scott, through a series of mishaps, had in his locker.

Greenberg went home that day, spent three hours streaming _Breaking Bad_ online, and then opened his geography book to find that the pictures were gone. After searching frantically through the book and shaking out the pages, he realized that this book didn’t have a penis scribbled in pencil on the back cover. He opened the front cover to find not his name, but Scott McCall’s name written on the inside.

Through a friend of a friend, Greenberg found Scott’s cell phone number and called him to ask if they could meet at the school and exchange books.

“Dude, I’ll just give it to you tomorrow,” Scott told him, but Greenberg adamantly refused.

“I want my book tonight, McCall. I’ve got homework.”

“Since when have you done homework?”

“I’ve always done homework. Just meet me at the lacrosse field in thirty, okay?”

“Alright, Greenberg, chill out. I’ll meet you in thirty.”

The two boys hung up the phone, and Greenberg, praying that Scott didn’t decide to look through his textbook, readied himself to drive to the school.

Scott arrived at the high school fifteen minutes later to go to his locker and retrieve Greenberg’s textbook. He turned it over in his hands, saw the penis drawing on the cover and laughed to himself, and turned to make his way to the lacrosse field. It was out of season, so no one was there when he arrived except Greenberg, who was standing near the net and shifting his weight nervously from foot to foot.

“Hey,” Scott called out, waving as he jogged up to meet him. Greenberg held out Scott’s textbook, and the two exchanged books quickly. Greenberg looked from his book to Scott’s face.

“Did you look through it or anything?” he asked suspiciously, and Scott earnestly shook his head.

“No,” he assured him. “Why?”

Greenberg looked relieved and shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing,” he said. “Just thought maybe you might’ve in class today or something. We had that worksheet and there’s some pic – uh, love letters that girls wrote for me in the book, and I just didn’t want you getting jealous is all, seeing as your ex is dating Lahey now.”

Scott clenched his fist for a second but relaxed quickly. “Allison and I are fine,” he insisted. “We’re still friends. Besides, I forgot the book in my locker today. I looked off of Stiles’.”

Greenberg looked up with a flash of interest. “Stilinski? I saw that dick this afternoon. How the fuck did he get a friggin’ model into his car without roofies or nothin’?”

Scott allowed confusion to flash across his face. “What?”

Greenberg gestured excitedly, his book forgotten in his hand. “That gorgeous babe that was sitting in his backseat after school today. She was a fucking bombshell, dude. How the fuck did Stilinski manage to convince her to get into his crap Jeep?”

Scott’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he looked at Greenberg. “There was a woman in his car? What did she look like?”

Greenberg shrugged, obviously not caring much about the details. “I dunno, man, like, sexy as shit. She was like a full-grown _woman_ , too, not like the giggly high school girls we have skipping around this place.” He gestured at the school. “Like, _womanly_ curves, I shit you not. She looked like she had _years_ of experience, dude. And she was showing like eighty percent of her boobs.”

Scott’s eyebrows were well on their way to disappearing into his hair. “And she was in _Stiles’_ car? What the fuck was Stiles doing?”

Shrugging, Greenberg waved his hand noncommittally. “I mean, he looked sort of tense, but he had a fucking _woman_ in the back of his car, who could blame him? Does Stilinski have a girlfriend he doesn’t wanna share with the rest of us? Fucking loser could at least give us the details if he’s banging a friggin’ _woman_ …”

The wheels in Scott’s head were spinning slowly, working up their momentum as his thoughts churned around the idea of Stiles with a strange woman in the back of his car. _He looked sort of tense_ …

“Thanks for the book, Greenberg,” Scott said as he backed away, already pulling his phone out of his pocket. “I have to go now. Seeya tomorrow.”

He turned and started jogging back towards the parking lot where his dirt bike was parked, finding Stiles’ number in his contacts and hitting _call_. He held the phone to his ear as he made his way to his bike, listening to the ringing. It went to voicemail.

“Hey,” Scott started, leaving a message. “Stiles, man, Greenberg told me he saw you leaving school with some woman in your car. What gives? Call me back.”

He hung up and quickly fired a text at Stiles asking him where he was, then, standing next to his car, he stared indecisively at his phone for a few moments before reluctantly calling Derek. He waited for a few seconds, but the phone went quickly to voicemail, as if Derek had denied his call. He dialed the number again, and this time Derek answered after three rings.

 _“What is it, Scott?”_ Derek growled on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Derek, listen,” Scott started. “Have any, um, foreign packs come to town in the last twenty four hours?”

There was a pause on Derek’s line. _“Why?”_ Derek asked.

“Because Greenberg just told me that Stiles left the parking lot after school looking tense, with a strange woman sitting in his backseat. And Stiles isn’t answering his phone.”

There was more silence on the other line, filled only with a static rustling.

 _“I haven’t sensed any other packs,”_ Derek finally answered. _“But I’ll talk to Peter and see if he’s noticed anything.”_ There was more silence. _“If you don’t hear from Stiles in thirty minutes, you should… you should call Chris Argent.”_ Derek said his name with a growl. _“He might have heard of any pack movement through his contacts.”_

Derek hung up before Scott could reply, and Scott stared at his phone contemplatively before tucking it into his coat pocket and throwing his leg over the seat of his bike, only to realize that he was still holding his geography book and needed to return it to his locker.

Scott ran to put his book in his locker and sent Stiles a few more texts and left one more voicemail on the way back to his bike, before climbing on and taking off. He had intended to go home, but found himself staring at the front of Stiles’ house ten minutes later instead. He stared at the driveway for a few moments. Both Stiles’ Jeep and the Sheriff’s cruiser were absent.

Pulling out his phone, Scott checked to see if Stiles had returned any of his messages. He hadn’t, but there was a short text from Derek reading _On my way to Peter_.

Scott called the Sheriff’s cell phone and held his phone to his ear, trying to stuff down the panic that he felt trying to make its way up his throat. Stiles was fine. He was just overreacting. He’d been too paranoid since… since everything.

 _“Scott?”_ the Sheriff asked after the fifth ring. _“I’m on duty. What do you need?”_

“Hey, uh, I was just wondering, did any of Stiles’ relatives come to town today? Like, a hot aunt, or like a cousin or something?”

There was a pause on the Sheriff’s line, but Scott knew he was pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

_“A hot…? No, Stiles doesn’t have any… no. Why?”_

“I was, uh, wondering if there would be any reason for Stiles to be driving a, um, woman somewhere?” Scott winced and looked up through a top floor window of the Stilinski home, not able to see anything except the blinds.

There was another pause. _“A woman? Scott, what are you talking about?”_ Then there was a groan. _“Scott, does this have anything to do with your, your_ werewolfy _business?”_

 _Fuck_ , Scott thought. He had been hoping he could keep Sheriff Stilinski from drawing that conclusion for a while yet. “Probably not. It’s just that he won’t answer his cell.” It was better if the Sheriff wasn’t worrying.

_“Well, listen, Scott, I’m on duty right now. My deputy is out sick and I just came back from a bum tip checking out the old distillery and I’ve still got two hours left on my shift.”_

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Scott replied, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he paused. “Wait, a bum tip? Who called it in?”

 _“It was anonymous,”_ the Sheriff said drily. _“Probably some stupid kid playing practical jokes.”_

“And your deputy? He was out sick? What’s wrong with him?”

_“He ingested some kind of poison. A plant or something that wasn’t supposed to be growing in his vegetable garden.”_

“Was it… aconite poisoning?” Scott asked gingerly.

_“Might’ve been. Hey, didn’t Stiles do some research on aconite poisoning a while ago? Think he might know when my deputy will be back in working condition?”_

Scott might not have been the best at critical thinking, but paranoia does tend to enhance one’s sense of danger. Scott’s wolfy senses were tingling.

“That sounds like a setup,” Scott muttered to himself.

_“What, Scott?”_

“Listen, Sheriff Stilinski, I’ll let you know if I hear anything from Stiles. Sorry for bothering you.”

_“It’s no problem. I’ll do the same. Take care, Scott.”_

“Thanks, Sheriff. You too.”

Scott hung up and continued to stare through the top floor window of Stiles’ house. An anonymous tip had called the Sheriff away from town by himself, because his deputy had conveniently come down with aconite poisoning.

Aconite poisoning. That meant it wasn’t a werewolf.

In fact, the whole situation – random woman showing up in Stiles’ car, the plan to get the Sheriff alone, the use of wolfsbane… it all seemed very…

Scott dialed Allison’s number.

The phone rang. And rang. And Scott didn’t know how worried he was that Allison wouldn’t answer until he heard her voice greeting him on the other end of the line.

“Allison, listen, this is really important,” Scott told her earnestly. “Are there any new Hunters in town?”

There was a pause on Allison’s end, and a nervous sort of laugh. _“Scott, you know I would tell you if any of my dad’s colleagues were passing through.”_

“Allison, listen, I know we’re not exactly as… as close as we used to be,” Scott started. “But I really need to know. Please.”

 _“Scott,”_ Allison started, a little tired sounding, a little bit of a warning in her voice. _“You know I’m on your side, and I’d never do anything to hurt you, but… but I need you to believe me when I tell you there aren’t any Hunters in town.”_

“Wait,” Scott said, frowning and turning, feeling like the world was spinning the wrong way. “You’re in on this?”

 _“Sometimes others need to come and check up on local packs,”_ Allison said, starting to sound a bit pleading. _“Make sure they’re really being kept, um, under control. There’s a Code and a system and rules, Scott, and my dad and I have to follow them if we want to keep being the Hunters allied in this area. It’s to keep you and Derek’s pack safe, Scott. No one gets hurt.”_

Scott raked his fingers through his hair and spun around, his gaze flicking up back to find the upstairs window. It was the one to Stiles’ room. “So, what? No one gets hurt? So Stiles doesn’t count?”

There was a pregnant pause. _“What?”_

“Just tell me where they took him, Allison,” Scott begged. “I promise, if he’s okay, I won’t hurt anyone. But I need to know what they want with him.”

 _“Stiles? What are you talking about? Scott, what happened to Stiles?”_ Allison sounded confused, and anxious.

“You said you were in on it,” Scott accused. “They took Stiles. You didn’t know?”

There was some harried breathing, and Scott heard a car door slam.

_“No, Scott, they wouldn’t do that, it goes against the Code. They wouldn’t take a human, or even a werewolf, unless they were provoked.”_

“Allison, you of all people should know that Hunters sometimes don’t stick to the Code.” There was a quiet inhale as Scott knew she was remembering Kate. “Listen, Allison, Stiles is missing. Greenberg saw some strange woman in the back of Stiles’ Jeep after school, and no one’s seen him since then. And I called his dad, and Sheriff Stilinski says he was called to the abandoned distillery on an anonymous tip, and he just so happened to be alone because his deputy had aconite poisoning. And that sounds like Hunter activity. Like they led the Sheriff up there so they could use him to blackmail Stiles into doing what they wanted. Like driving a Hunter in the back of his Jeep.”

There was more silence.

“Allison, I need to find Stiles. I need you to tell me anything that could help.”

There was a rough exhale and then Allison spoke. _“I’m going to talk to my dad about this. I’m sure he’ll be able to clear it all up. I’ll help you find him.”_

She hung up, and Scott lowered his phone to his side, shuddering as he curled his hand into a fist, piercing the skin of his palm with his claws. Then he moved back to his bike and, tucking his phone into his pocket, headed towards Derek’s flat.

He found Derek with Peter, Peter looking smug and comfortably sprawled out along the couch, Derek tense and glowering from his standing position near the windows.

“Peter says there aren’t any rival packs in the area,” he said stiffly.

“Yeah, I know. I called Allison,” Scott told him. “It’s Hunters.”

That was all Derek needed to hear before he growled that he needed to go find the trail and exited the apartment quickly.

“That one, always in a rush,” Peter sighed, leaning back.

Scott followed Derek outside. They started at the school. Unfortunately, there was only so much a werewolf could do with a trail that consisted of burnt rubber and the lingering scent of curly fries, especially when the scent pretty much permanently permeated throughout the entire city. Stiles drove that Jeep everywhere.

So they followed what they could until the trail got jumbled up in the hazy rush of downtown, and then they stopped and Scott did what no male werewolf ever did: he asked directions.

“Have you seen a pale blue Jeep pass by here?”

“A pale blue Jeep?”

“The Sheriff’s son’s Jeep?”

“Stiles’ Jeep?”

“A pale blue one? About three hours ago?”

“Did you see it?”

“What direction?”

“When?”

There were several comments on seeing Stiles’ Jeep, a couple saying they saw it headed away from town, but it wasn’t until a kid from their school overheard one of their interrogations did they get any good information.

“Stilinski’s Jeep? You’re looking for him?” the boy asked. Derek was a little bit away, because under no circumstances was he actually talking to people, but Scott could tell he was listening.

“Yeah. Have you seen it?”

The kid rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, dude, like four hours ago. I was driving out to, uh, smoke a joint on the old bridge, and Stilinski was behind me most of the time. Broke away when he turned at that fork, headed towards the Circle-K. That help?”

Scott grinned in relief. “Yeah, yeah, thanks a lot.” He clapped him gratefully on the shoulder and turned towards Derek.

“We need a car,” Derek stated. “Unless you expect me to ride on the back of that stupid bike.” Scott cast a glance towards his dirt bike, which he had ridden into town whereas Derek had run. He didn’t exactly want Derek Hale’s arms wrapped around his waist as he rode his bike.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll call Allison, she said she’d help…” He started pulling out his cell phone, but Derek’s hand stopped him, clasping his wrist.

“We don’t need her help,” he said stiffly, an angry glint in his eyes.

“We need to find Stiles as fast as we can,” Scott told him. “And she has a car.”

Derek’s hand lingered on Scott’s wrist for a few moments, then tightened before he let go, allowing Scott to pull out his phone. Before he could find Allison’s contact, her picture flashed onto the screen. She was calling him.

 _“Scott,”_ Allison exclaimed when he answered the call. _“I asked my dad about what you said. He told me he wasn’t informed about any plans like that, but he’s tried to contact the other Hunters and they won’t answer his questions. I think… I think you might be right.”_

“Thanks.” He could practically hear Allison’s strained smile across the line. “Listen, Allison, Derek and I found a lead. But we need a car. Can you come pick us up?”

_“Of course, where are you?”_

“Downtown, outside of the coffee shop.”

Allison arrived thirteen minutes later. Derek silently fumed that a Hunter was behind the wheel of a vehicle that he entered voluntarily, but made no comment from the backseat as Scott instructed Allison towards the Circle-K outside of town. Scott didn’t miss the way Allison kept nervously flicking her eyes up to glance at Derek through the rearview mirror, or the way that Derek’s eyes never left Allison’s hands on the steering wheel even as his nostrils were flared, straining to pick up any scent of Stiles he could.

The Circle-K was dirty and small. It was one of those gas stations that exist on the outskirts of small towns so that passers-through didn’t have to go too far out of their way from the highway in order to gas up. Allison pulled up in front of the building and parked, then turned and gave Scott and Derek a small smile that Scott returned and Derek ignored, immediately exiting the car and freezing, sniffing the air.

Allison and Scott got out behind him and Scott inhaled deeply, his brain sparking with the scent of _Stiles_ and _woman_ and _men_ and _wolfsbane_ and _fear_.

“What do you smell?” Allison asked, gazing at Scott before glancing at Derek.

“Stiles was here,” Derek said. “There were three others. Two men and a woman.”

Allison’s eyes flitted around the parking lot. She pressed her lips together into a thin line. “Maybe they just wanted to talk,” she whispered. “Maybe he went with them willingly.”

Derek scoffed, rolling his head up to look at the sky and then back to Allison to glare at her with a patronizing expression. “It smells like fear,” he told her, eyebrows a hard straight line. “Stiles was scared. And I know Stiles, and he doesn’t get scared for much.”

The three of them were quiet for a moment. Allison looked crushed.

“You know I would never have kept the Hunters a secret from you if I’d known they were going to take Stiles,” she said quietly. “He’s my friend.”

“Then get off of your high Hunters-follow-the-Code horse and help us find him,” Derek growled at her before stepping out into the parking lot, head sweeping back and forth, searching for some kind of trail. Scott smiled at Allison apologetically and followed.

Allison turned around and walked into the gas station to talk to the man at the front desk, because werewolves were stubborn and didn’t like to ask for help.

“There were two cars here at the same time,” Derek told Scott. “Another car was in the parking lot besides Stiles’ Jeep.”

“Do you think they noticed that Stiles was being kidnapped?” Scott asked. Derek shook his head.

“Hunters are good at what they do,” he said. “They would make sure no one noticed anything.”

That was when Allison exited the gas station with a smile of excitement.

“Roger,” she started, “The man who works in the Circle-K, he says that he didn’t see anything happen in the parking lot because he was in the bathroom, but he did see a pale blue Jeep driving away that way.” She pointed on down the road past the Circle-K, headed away from the fork and the highway.

“Awesome!” Scott exclaimed, walking up to Allison and grinning brightly. “Did he say how long ago?”

“Almost four hours,” Allison said, her smile flickering. “We need to catch up.”

Scott turned to Derek, who was staring at the ground a few feet in front of him. “Derek, let’s go. We should hurry.”

Derek didn’t move to walk back towards the car. Instead, he walked forward and bent to pick something up. He turned back to Scott and Allison, holding something up for them to see.

“This is Stiles’,” he said. “This is Stiles’ shoelace.”

Scott frowned and walked towards Derek, leaning in towards the shoelace and sniffing it experimentally.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it is. So what? Let’s go.”

Derek shook his head. “Scott,” he hissed, “If Stiles’ shoelace is on the ground, it means he got out of the Jeep. They didn’t just stop here for gas. There was another car here at the same time, and Stiles’ scent and the scents of the other Hunters, they cross all over the distance between the cars.” He glared around the parking lot, following some invisible trail with his eyes. He closed his fist around the broken-off bit of shoelace and grimaced. “Stiles was leaving us a message,” he muttered. “This shoelace didn’t just fall off, or the fibers wouldn’t be stretched like this. He broke off his shoelace on purpose to let us know that he got out of the Jeep.” He turned to Allison. “Did that man, Roger, did he say what direction the other car went in?”

Allison nodded, eyes wide. “He said there was also a green minivan, it went back that way, towards the highway.” She gestured back the way they’d come.

Derek spun and glared down the road where Allison had pointed. He stuffed his fist into his pocket and nodded. “That way,” he said. “Stiles was in that car. We’re following that minivan.”

“He probably just left the shoelace to tell us that he’d been here, so we could pick up his trail again if we’d lost it. We have to follow Stiles’ Jeep,” Scott started, and Derek rounded on him, eyes glinting red.

“Stiles isn’t stupid, and he left us his shoelace on purpose. It’s a clear message. He knows werewolves, he knew we would be able to track him this far. He didn’t leave the shoelace to let us know he’d been here. He left it to let us know that something happened here. To catch our attention and make us think.” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the highway. “Stiles wanted us to realize that they switched cars. We need to listen to him.”

If it had been last year and Scott was still adamantly ignoring anything Derek said, he probably wouldn’t have listened to Derek, had told him to suck it because Scott wasn’t a part of his pack, and had taken Allison (and Allison’s car) and driven after Stiles’ Jeep.

But it wasn’t last year, and Scott was a mature True Alpha now, and as much as he didn’t like to think about it, it seemed as though Derek and Stiles had developed somewhat of a relationship – they trusted each other now, and that was new – over the summer while Scott was busy bettering himself. Maybe Scott wouldn’t leap at the opportunity to trust Derek, but he knew that, somehow, Stiles trusted Derek, and Derek, in turn, trusted Stiles. And Scott trusted Stiles with his life. So, vicariously, he trusted Derek.

“Alright,” Scott said finally. “We’ll follow the green minivan. But what about Stiles’ Jeep? He’s gonna kill us if we let a Hunter nab it.”

“I’ll text Isaac,” Derek said. “He can track it and drive it back to Stiles’ place.”

He stalked past Scott and climbed into the back of Allison’s Jeep. Allison looked from Derek sulking in the backseat to Scott, who squared his shoulders and clenched his jaw.

“The minivan’s trail is hours old,” Allison said. “You’ll lose it on the highway. I’m going to call my dad and ask him if there’s anywhere the Hunters might go, any bases in nearby towns. Then we’ll go.”

She pulled out her cellphone and walked away towards the far corner of the gas station. Derek stared after her in frustrated disbelief, but Scott lingered in the parking lot for a moment before walking over to climb into the passenger seat.

Four minutes later, Allison slid into the driver’s seat and turned to give Scott and Derek a satisfied smile. “I talked to my dad. I think we’re going to get the jump on the Hunters. Apparently, they don’t know that dad knows about their base, but he always does a bunch of investigating when a new group comes to town.” She gave Derek an imploring look. “He really does just try to do his best to keep everyone safe.”

“Where is the base?” Derek growled. Allison wilted, her smile drooping a bit.

“The Hunter heading the operation, her name is Angela Arbor. She, um…” she lowered her gaze. “She was an old acquaintance of my aunt Kate. She trained under her.”

Derek huffed out a humorless laugh. “What a shock.”

A furrow appeared between Allison’s eyebrows, but she didn’t object. “Anyway, her family, they own a hotel. It’s super ritzy, it’s mostly for Hunters and their associates. We tend to, uh, have old money.” She had the decency to blush. “Anyway, it’s called the Silver Leaf Hotel. It’s about five hours south of here, down the highway. I can get it up on my phone’s GPS.”

“You do that,” Derek said. “We have to go.”

Allison flashed a no-teeth smile at Scott and entered the hotel’s name quickly into her GPS before setting it up and pulling silently out of the parking lot.

Scott couldn’t help but notice that Derek’s fist was still in his pocket, clenching around the bit of shoelace, jaw tense, eyebrows drawn together in either anger or anxiety, maybe both, his dark eyes gazing out the window.

The four hour drive passed slowly and tensely. After the initial adrenaline of searching for Stiles’ trail and finding out where the Hunters were taking him had worn off, they were left with nothing but the empty feeling of his absence and the dark fear of what they could be doing to him at any given moment. Scott’s fists were clenched in his lap, disguising his claws from Allison, though he thought she could probably tell they had come out, or at least could assume. Allison’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel, her gaze remaining fixed on the highway. Scott knew that she was feeling guilty for trusting Hunters that had ended up crazy like Kate and Gerard, two people who she’d never forgive herself for trusting.

Derek remained silent in the backseat, hand clutched around Stiles’ shoelace.

The Silver Leaf Hotel was huge and fancy and didn’t look at all like a Hunter’s torture chamber, which Scott supposed was probably a good reason for it to be a Hunter’s base of action for torture. Less predictable. He shuddered to think how long it would have taken them to find Stiles if Chris Argent hadn’t known about it. Or if they would have been able to find him at all.

As it was, Scott nearly danced for joy when he caught Stiles’ scent leading up to the hotel’s entrance, and Allison let out a gasp of relief when he told her, and Derek just glared straight ahead, fist still in his pocket, and started to open the door, probably to wolf into full alpha-mode and tear apart the hotel lobby until someone released Stiles.

Then Allison reached through the crack between her seat and the car’s side and grabbed his wrist, effectively stopping him, because Derek had become well trained in the art of not accidentally ripping off the arms of humans and actually sometimes obeying them when they tried to communicate through physical contact. Something that Scott realized he had probably learned from Stiles.

“We can’t just walk through the front door,” Allison told him. “They’re extremely wealthy Hunters. They probably have security cameras and guards and automatic weapons. We need to be careful about this.”

Scott could tell that Derek wanted to argue, but that Derek also realized that Allison’s reasoning was logical.

“Fine,” he forced through clenched teeth. “What course of action do you propose we take?” His tone was biting and sarcastic.

“I _propose_ ,” Allison answered in turn, “That we enter discretely. This building is well kept, but it’s old. It’ll have fire escapes. Let’s go around back to the fire escapes and make a stealthy entrance. Then we act like snooty upper-class patrons and walk unthreateningly through the hallways, letting your noses calmly and collectedly lead the way.”

Scott nodded along to her plan. “That sounds fair,” he told Derek. “And if we’re not storming through the hallways all wolfed out, it’ll be less likely for the Hunters to notice us and attack. It’ll be easier to get to Stiles in the long run, Derek.”

Derek’s teeth were grinding so hard, Scott wouldn’t have been surprised if they crumbled. But he nodded jerkily.

Allison pulled back onto the street and drove past the hotel to a sleek black business building half a block down the street. She drove around and parked behind the building, and the three of them walked down to the back of the hotel, looking as unobtrusive as possible. Then Derek jumped up to the first floor fire escape and reached down to help Scott hoist Allison up as well.

They climbed to the third floor and, after Derek was sure that no one was on the other side, entered through the gilded window. They fell into an empty room with a two made double-beds.

“Clean yourselves up, we have to look presentable,” Allison hissed, standing and brushing the front of her pants off, straightening her shirt and jacket. When Scott looked suitable, she hooked her arm through his elbow and gave him an apologetic smile. “Helps keep appearances,” she said, flustered. She turned to Derek. “Walk next to us, try not to grimace so much, and don’t flash your eyes at anyone. We have to stay undercover for as long as we can.”

They exited the room as casually as they could. The hallway was empty, but lined with paintings in gold-embellished wooden frames and sparkling mirrors, with spindly wooden tables holding up ceramic vases standing next to plush armchairs every-so-often, as though rich people needed a break to chat every fifty feet down the expensively-carpeted corridors.

Scott was distracted by Allison’s arm around his and the smell of her perfume that surrounded him in a hazy cloud.

“Don’t look towards the security cameras,” Allison whispered. “They’ll notice your eye flares.”

Derek huffed in acknowledgement, turning his eyes down slightly and focusing on his nose to lead him through the hallways.

“Can you smell him?” Allison whispered to Scott, who stumbled over a small lump in the rug.

“I can’t concentrate,” he whispered back, feeling her perfume tickling the back of his throat. Allison patted his arm sympathetically.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I understand. But he’s going to be alright, Scott.”

And then Scott felt guilty because Allison obviously assumed that he couldn’t concentrate for worry about Stiles, when there he was trying not to lean in and sniff Allison’s hair because Earth to Scotty, they were over, and Allison had moved on. He had Isaac to thank for that.

Derek inhaled and then rounded the corner, stalking forward as innocuously as he could, and not succeeding very well. Scott and Allison followed, almost tripping over each other’s feet in their hurry.

Scott focused on his nose and breathed in deeply. Faintly, he caught what had made Derek turn. A faint scent of Stiles. It wasn’t in that hallway, but it was close. 

They picked up Stiles’ trail a few minutes later. Scott could smell him, the woman, and one of the men from the parking lot at the Circle-K. It led down hallway after hallway, up stairwells and through more hallways, and finally ended in front of a door. Scott reached out eagerly for the doorknob. Allison dropped her arm from his and steadied herself on her feet, bracing for a fight.

Derek grabbed Scott’s wrist in a grip like a vice before he could touch the handle.

“Wait, Scott,” he growled. “Something’s not right. There’s no… there’s no sound, on the other side of the door.”

“Maybe it’s soundproof,” Scott said. “Maybe they’re taking a break.”

Derek glared at the white door for a moment, then dropped Scott’s wrist. Scott nodded and opened the door.

The room was empty. There was a single king-sized four-post bed, a large armchair, a flat-screen television, and a door that probably led to a fancy crystal bathroom.

“What?” Scott exclaimed, stepping into the room and looking around. “Where are they?”

Derek stepped in, walking in front of him and standing beside the bed. He sniffed, and his whole body tensed, shoulders squaring. “He was here,” he said, his voice sounding like gravel. “He’s not here anymore, but he was.” Allison and Scott exchanged glances. “And he was bleeding,” Derek said, voice choking. “And he was...”

He couldn’t finish the sentence, but Scott knew what he was going to say. He could smell what Derek could. Stiles’ blood. Stiles’ fear. And the unmistakable scent of burnt flesh, the scent that Derek didn’t want to face. 

“Where did they go?” Scott asked, and Derek’s eyes snapped up to his face from the patch of hardwood he had been staring at a few feet away where there were scuff marks, as though a chair had been violently upturned. “I mean, the trail leads here. There isn’t a second one leading away. So where could they have gone?”

“They might have doubled back,” Allison suggested. “Gone back the way they’d come, taken him to a different room. So…” 

“We might have passed right by him on the way here,” Derek growled, clenching his fist in his pocket once more.

“I know Hunters,” Allison said, making eye contact with Derek. “That’s the kind of thing they’d do. So we just need to go back. We’ll find him, Derek.” 

Derek lowered his eyes from her gaze and nodded curtly.

“Sure you’ll find him,” a new voice spoke from behind them. Scott spun to look towards the open door, and Derek growled, unsheathing his claws. A man was standing in the doorway looking satisfied, holding a silver dagger in one hand that was quite obviously dusted with wolfsbane. “Dunno if you’ll want him back. Four hours of torture can really make a boy squeal.” 

Derek was shaking with unbridled fury, eyes flaring red. Scott was about to flash his red eyes in a compulsory show of dominance before he realized that it would probably be more tactful to save the little True Alpha Reveal until he knew whether or not the Hunters knew about his recently acquired werewolf power. He struggled to keep his claws in his fingers and his fangs in his gums, but it was a difficult internal battle. Beside him, Allison had drawn a nasty-looking, curved, serrated knife about the size of Scott’s forearm that she had undoubtedly been hiding underneath her jacket, and Scott had to silently thank whatever was listening that his ex-girlfriend was such a badass. And that she was on his side.

“I’ll make _you_ squeal if you don’t give him back to me,” Derek growled, a deep rumble that echoed through Scott’s chest and would have made him quaver if he was still an omega. Okay, maybe it made him quaver a little bit even then as an alpha. But damn, that had been an impressive growl. 

There was a flicker of something in the Hunter’s eyes that could have been fear, but could also have very well been malevolence. “That won’t be necessary. You’ll get him back. But on our terms.” The Hunter leaned against the doorframe and began using his dagger to pick under his fingernails. Derek almost lunged in for the kill the moment the Hunter’s gaze flicked down to what he was doing with his blade, but a second later two Hunters were behind the first, pointing loaded crossbows at Derek’s and Scott’s chests.

“And what are your terms?” Scott asked, keeping his voice as steady as he could. The Hunter gazed at him with a touch of humor. 

“Ah, Scott McCall. Yes, we thought you might be one of them.” His gaze flitted to Allison. “And Miss Argent. A pity you’re siding with the mutts.”

“I’m honoring the Code,” Allison said, her voice strong and commanding. “These werewolves have done nothing but protect the people of Beacon Hills, and Stiles is a _human_ who has risked his life many times defending the innocent.” 

“Stiles is a human who has betrayed his species by joining a ‘wolf pack,” the Hunter spat. “He deserves everything we’ve dealt to him, and more. And you’ll get him back as soon as he tells us what we want to know.”

“Let him go,” Derek said. “Take me instead. You can torture me.” 

The Hunter clucked his tongue and waggled his finger at Derek. “Tut tut, Derek. I thought you’d expect better from us by now. Why on earth would we torture a werewolf with magical healing capabilities and some sort of mystical need to never, ever give information to enemies, when we can torture a perfectly normal, weak, breakable, pitiful human?” He stuck his dagger in the wooden doorframe and sneered. “Besides, torturing one of your kind without any prior offense would go against the Code. And we’re honorable Hunters. We follow the Code.” He glared daggers at Allison but smiled. “Unfortunately for Stiles, there is nothing written in the Code that protects humans who run with ‘wolves. And oh, does he _scream_.”

That was when Derek decided that he couldn’t hold back anymore. With a roar that shook the windowpanes, he leaped towards the Hunter, jaw open and fangs glinting towards his throat. He was stopped with an arrow from one of the other Hunter’s crossbows. It hit him in the shoulder, sinking into his flesh with a thud. Normally Derek wouldn’t have been stopped by one arrow, even if it had been laced with wolfsbane. But he shuddered to a halt, his arm shaking as he reached up to the shaft, obviously trying in vain to tug the arrowhead out of his body. He stared at it in apparent confusion, swaying where he stood, before stumbling to his knees and slamming his hands to the wooden floor, obviously sinking into forced unconsciousness. 

Scott stood still for a moment, watching Derek fall, his jaw open somewhat in disbelief and shock, before there was another distinct thud and he looked down to see that an arrow similar to Derek’s had sprouted out of his right shoulder. He gaped at it, his vision growing blurry.

His knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor, observing as Allison rushed past him with her knife outstretched, her brows furrowed in concentration. She slashed at the Hunter in the doorway, who parried her strike with his own dagger. They grappled for a moment before one of the Hunters armed with a bow snuck up behind her and stabbed a needle into her back. Her mouth hung open and her eyes rolled back into her head, and she slumped, unconscious, into the Hunter’s arms.

Scott slid sideways, his head resting on the hardwood flooring, smelling Stiles' blood thick beneath his nose, and was dimly aware of the Hunter with the dagger bending over Derek’s slumped form. “You’ll get your human back as soon as we’re done with him,” he heard the Hunter whisper before everything faded to black.

 

[ . . . ]

 

When Derek awoke, he was in Deaton’s office.

That is, he was on his back on the metal… table… thing, in Deaton’s office. He could tell before he opened his eyes. He could also tell that Scott was unconscious on the floor next to him, and that Allison was asleep, but upright in a chair in the room next door. And that Deaton was staring at him from across the room, probably with a knowing smile on his face. 

“Hello, Derek,” Deaton said, and Derek opened his eyes. “Welcome to the waking world.”

Derek heaved himself into a sitting position and groaned, lifting his hand up to his shoulder. The arrow had been removed and the wound was healed. It was a phantom pain. A memory. 

“Stiles,” Derek said, although he hadn’t thought much about saying anything. The word had slipped out without his control, but he found that yes, that would have been what he would have chosen to say, if his mouth had given him a second to think.

There was a soft sound as Deaton turned and walked towards him, his expression grim but not upset. “The three of you were found in the backseat of Allison’s car in the driveway of Chris Argent. He drove you and Scott here to my safekeeping. It seems that he didn’t quite want the werewolf who hates him and his daughter’s ex-boyfriend in his house.” Deaton smiled. Derek stared. “The drugs they used to sedate Allison appeared to not have been quite as potent as those used on you and Scott. She awoke long enough to request to stay here with the two of you.” 

“Stiles,” Derek repeated. “Where is Stiles?” 

Deaton sighed and walked around the table, his hand trailing along the metal surface, his gaze wandering along the walls of his office. “Stiles has not yet been returned,” he said, sounding regretful. “He has been missing for some time now. Over eighteen hours. His father has been looking for him. Sheriff Stilinski has called you, several times.” He nodded to Derek’s side where his cell phone was resting, showing eight missed calls from the Sheriff. “I believe he has been informed as to what has happened by Chris Argent, who is currently on his way to the Silver Leaf Hotel to confront Angela Arbor. He is very angry with her.”

Derek picked up his phone and scrolled through his missed messages. A text from Isaac saying that he’d found Stiles’ Jeep. That there’d been a Hunter waiting for him. There had been a fight, but Isaac had managed to knock him unconscious without much bloodshed. He’d rolled him off the road. Inside the Jeep had been Stiles’ keys, his backpack, his cell phone. He would drive it back to the Stilinski house. Was there anything he could do to help find Stiles?

There were eight missed calls from the Sheriff, but only five voicemails. Derek didn’t listen to them. He was sure that every one of them would say something along the lines of “ _My son has been kidnapped by Hunters. Why didn’t you tell me? What’s taking you so long to get him back? If he’s hurt and you could have stopped it I will hunt you down.”_

There was a text from Stiles’ phone telling Derek _Just wait a little longer and we’ll give you back your chew-toy_. He almost crushed his phone inside his fist. Instead, he tucked it into his pocket with shaking hands.

“They said,” Derek started, before stopping when his voice broke into a growl. “They said they’d give him back when they were done with him.” 

“They’ve been torturing him,” Deaton guessed. “For information on the Hale pack. Or the McCall pack?”

Derek shook his head. “They said they had ‘guessed’ that Scott might be a werewolf. I don’t think they knew that he doesn’t follow me. Or that he is his own Alpha.”

Deaton nodded. “I think that may be true.”

There was a sigh as Scott shifted, waking. Deaton moved and bent to help sit him upright, and Scott moaned as Derek had done, clutching a hand to his shoulder.

“It’s alright, Scott,” Deaton comforted. “Can you stand?” 

Scott nodded and Deaton helped him stumble to his feet. Suddenly, Derek realized that he was still sitting on Deaton’s table, a little embarrassed. He slid his legs over the side and slipped off to land on his feet. He didn’t stumble.

“Stiles?” Scott muttered. Derek listened to Deaton tell Scott everything that he had told Derek minutes earlier. He didn’t contribute. Instead, he walked slowly towards the door to the next room through which he could hear Allison’s slow breathing. 

He opened the door and heard Allison’s breath hitch as she awoke. Her brown eyes connected with his and by her sympathetic and guilty expression, he knew that she knew that Stiles hadn’t been found yet. 

“My dad’s going to get him back,” she said. “He’s angry with her.” She must have seen the sarcastic retort as it formed in his brain because she hurriedly added “And with himself. That he allowed those Hunters to enter Beacon Hills and do something like this. He really does only want the best for everyone, Derek.” Derek scoffed. “I know our families got off to sort of a rocky start, but he’s come to accept that you’re as much an asset to this town and its people as you are a potential threat. He would never intentionally put you or your pack in danger. Especially not Stiles.”

Derek was silent, unable to answer because he was sick of arguing and honestly, he didn’t trust the Argents by a long shot, but he had come to grudgingly accept that no matter how much trouble they brought to him, they always seemed to want to fix it in earnest. 

“Stiles isn’t in my pack,” he finally muttered. Allison raised her eyebrows.

“I think you’ll have a hard time trying to convince him of that.” 

He looked away from her small smile and returned to Scott and Deaton, who were looking at him nonplussed. He gestured for Allison to follow and could hear her sigh of relief.

“You can’t do it,” Allison and Deaton said at the same time that both Scott and Derek said “I’m going back for Stiles.” They looked at each other, exchanging determined expressions. 

“I have to,” Derek growled. “They took him because of me. I’m not leaving him there any longer than I have to.”

“You can’t, Derek,” Allison said. “You remember what happened last time? You know, before they shot you full of tranquilizer arrows? They were ready for us. They outnumbered us. We can’t possibly have any semblance of an advantage on their own territory.” 

“I can’t just leave him there,” Scott exclaimed. “He’s my best friend! He’d do the same for me!”

“It is wisest to wait here for word from Chris Argent,” Deaton told them with a soothing voice. “No matter how heartless they are, they are still Hunters. They would not kill a human. He will be alright. The same cannot be said for the two of you if you hostilely invade a Hunter’s territory for a second time.” 

“Alright? He won’t be alright! They said they were _torturing_ him! It smelled like…” Scott choked on the memory. “Like his blood and…”

And then Derek’s phone buzzed in his pocket. 

He assumed it was the Sheriff, and at first he was going to ignore it. Then he thought about how well Sheriff Stilinski had taken the fact that his underage son had been hanging out with an accused murderer werewolf by himself for months. Surprisingly well for a human man who had been previously unexposed to the supernatural. He decided that Sheriff Stilinski deserved some sort of answer. Stiles may have been his… his… his something. But he was the Sheriff’s son. 

Derek pulled out his phone and answered the call. “Hello?”

“ _That wasn’t so hard, was it?”_ a female voice asked him. “ _It didn’t take so very long. I told you, you just had to be patient and we’d give you your toy back.”_

Derek’s hand tightened around the phone. “Where’s Stiles?” he growled into the receiver. A humorous laugh echoed in his ears.

“ _We’re done with him. He’s a little worse for wear, but he gave us what we wanted, in the end.”_

“If you’ve…” Derek was going to say _If you’ve hurt him,_ before his brain recalled the scent of Stiles’ blood, fear, and burnt flesh and his voice was choked in his throat.

“ _We have,”_ Angela replied. “ _But don’t worry, we’re ready to return him to you. Don’t throw a tantrum. I just wanted to give you the address.”_

Derek was silent. Scott and Allison were staring at him with wide eyes, Allison’s questioning, Scott’s angry. Scott could hear the conversation. 

“ _Meet us at the abandoned distillery,”_ Angela told him with a laugh. “ _We will have weapons and numbers. We will give you Stiles – I hope you don’t mind, but I think he might be broken, he doesn’t squeak like he did when we first borrowed him – and you will take him and leave. I promise you, a fight is not recommended. You will not win. Oh, and he’s not in any danger at the moment, but I would suggest you take him to the hospital. He needs a couple stitches.”_

Derek opened his mouth to growl some sort of threat, but she hung up. 

Not for the first time that night, he wanted to crush his phone in his bare hand. He didn’t. But he wanted to. 

“Let’s go!” said Scott, his face brightening in eagerness to see his friend despite the fear shadowing his expression of what shape his friend would be in.

“My father took my car,” Allison said from behind Derek. Deaton held up a hand in a calming gesture.

“It’s no problem. You can use mine.” He reached into the pocket of his coat and held out his hand towards Derek, silver keys dangling from his fingers. Derek nodded reluctant thanks and took them. 

Four minutes later they were in Deaton’s car headed in the direction of the distillery.

“The distillery is an hour out of town,” Scott huffed from the passenger seat. “They’re doing this on purpose.” 

“Of course they are,” Derek snarled. His hands were clenched around the steering wheel like vices. “Hunters are manipulative monsters.”

Allison hummed a reminder that she was sitting in the backseat. Derek didn’t take it back. She knew exactly how manipulative Hunters were, and if she needed a reminder, he would just shove Scott’s broken heart and Boyd and Erica’s old arrow wounds down her throat and see if she remembered then. 

The distillery was an hour out of town, but with Derek behind the wheel, it took forty minutes. The long, empty road leading up to the abandoned building was rife with memories. Of Paige, of Jennifer. Soon, it would be rife with memories of Stiles. He grimly thought it was fitting that the Hunters had chosen the distillery, and wondered if it wasn’t purposeful. Hell, Kate had taken him there several times to “be alone”.

The building seemed empty enough from the outside. There were no cars parked in front of it, so Derek had ample space to park Deaton’s. He braked with a squeal of burning rubber and a rain of scattered gravel and was out of the car almost before the vehicle came to a complete stop. He left it running as he stalked towards the entrance, hearing Scott and Allison scrambling behind him. 

He could smell Stiles before he entered the building. He could also smell Angela Arbor and the two men from the Circle-K and the man from the Silver Leaf Hotel that had taunted Derek in the hotel room and five other Hunters besides.

They were waiting for him when he entered, smiling maliciously. Angela was at the head of the group, hands hanging at her side, a crossbow held loosely in one of them. Behind her, the two men from the Circle-K were holding Stiles up by his armpits, apparently more to keep him standing than to keep him from running. 

Derek felt a growl work its way up his throat with a rumble and heard Scott growl as well from behind him. He only hoped he wasn’t flashing his eyes. If Stiles hadn’t given away that Scott was a True Alpha, they were not going to take away that one triumph.

“Oh, you’ve come back for him!” Angela crooned. “He’s been asking for you. Crying for his dad mostly, but your name was scattered around there somewhere.” 

“We’re here,” Derek hissed through gritted teeth. “Give him to me.”

“Sure, sure,” Angela nodded. “We will. You want a towel, first?” She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “To protect the upholstery?” 

Derek bared his fangs and unsheathed his claws and advanced, but Angela stood her ground, raising her hands in a placating gesture. Behind her, three Hunters, who stood behind the two holding Stiles, raised loaded bows.

“Calm down, Derek. Here he is. Just take your toy back and leave. I told you, we’re done playing with him.” 

“He’s a human,” Derek spat at her. “Stop calling him a toy.”

Angela rolled her eyes and beckoned behind her at the two Hunters, who stepped forward and thrust Stiles away from them. He stumbled on weak legs and fell to his knees, but before he could fall on his face Angela fisted her hand in his hair, holding him upright and straining his neck back. Derek could see blood on his chest and on his face. His shirt was torn and hanging from his elbows, leaving his torso and shoulders uncovered. His pants were gone; his legs were clothed only in his boxers. He moaned as Angela’s grip in his hair tightened, and Derek stepped forward, eyes glowing red. 

“Ah ah ah,” Angela sang, waving her finger at Derek and bending over Stiles, lowering her mouth to his ear. “Let me say goodbye first.”

Derek could hear Stiles whimper as she whispered in his ear. “ _I hope he doesn’t eat you up for telling us all his secrets_ ,” she hissed softly. Stiles’ expression contorted and Derek saw that one of his eyes was swollen shut, his nose was broken, his lip was split. She looked up at Derek with sparkling eyes and sneered into Stiles’ ear. “ _He looks like the kind of monster that might get upset about something like that_.” 

She straightened and released her grip on Stiles’ hair, and he slumped forward towards the concrete floor. Derek rushed to catch him as Angela slinked away, allowing Derek to prop Stiles up and look him over, cataloguing his injuries.

Stiles’ face was purple and blue and black under the blood that had poured from his nose and from a split in the skin just above his hairline. He had two black eyes but only one of them was swollen shut; his nose was crooked but had stopped bleeding what looked to be an hour or two ago; his split lip was swollen and oozing red that dripped into his mouth and stained his teeth. Derek’s eyes flicked down to his torso, which was also covered in congealing blood. It almost looked like the Hunters had carved letters into Stiles’ chest. 

There were cuts ribboning around his upper arms and lacing across his stomach, but Derek couldn’t find what he smelled was _burnt_ until he ran a hand heavily down Stiles’ back and Stiles groaned in pain. Derek flinched, removing his hand and finding it sticky with what he instinctively knew was blood and pus from the burns that littered Stile’s bare back. 

“Stiles,” Derek whispered, because it was the only thing he could say.

“Is he okay?” Scott asked from behind him, and Derek jumped. He had forgotten there were others in the distillery, but he looked up then to see Angela still smirking at him from twenty feet away, surrounded by her Hunter minions, and he could hear Scott snarling at every exhale from behind him, and that Allison had drawn her silver knife and was holding it carefully in front of her. But more than anything else, he could hear Stiles’ shuddering breaths, feel him shaking in his arms, and smell his blood and fear and pain. 

“He’ll live,” Derek said, because it was the truth.

“Of course he will,” Angela smiled. “Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the precious plaything. No hard feelings, right, Derek? We’ll let you be. For now.”

Through a haze of red, Derek saw Angela turn and exit the building, guarded by the other Hunters, who brandished their bows in Derek’s direction for a few moments as they retreated before following Angela into the dusk of the early morning. He hooked his arms under Stiles’ knees and shoulders and tried not to agitate his injuries as he lifted him, standing and turning with Stiles cradled to his chest.

Scott had advanced to Derek while the Hunters retreated. He raised his hand to Stiles’ shoulder, gripping it loosely at a small area of skin that wasn’t cut, and stared into his eyes with the earnestness that only Scott could ever possess. 

“Hey,” he told Stiles, “We got you.”

Stiles looked back at Scott with his good eye. The corners of his mouth stretched into a tired grin, his teeth stained red, and he nodded at his best friend. “Yeah, buddy, I got that much. I’m not Helen Keller.” 

Scott smiled, the tension leaking out of him as he saw that his best friend was making a joke. He wasn’t “broken” like Angela had said. He was still Stiles.

Derek couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling happy that Stiles was back, because maybe he was smiling (with bloody teeth) and cracking wise-ass remarks, but he was still covered head to foot with cuts and lacerations and burns and bruises and he noticed that Stiles was clutching his hands close to his chest and saw that several of his fingers were visibly broken. He felt sick. 

“We have to get him to the hospital,” Allison spoke up, because Derek couldn’t find words to speak or the initiative to move his legs.

“Right,” Derek said. “Right.” He turned on his heels and started back towards Deaton’s car. Stiles was light in his arms, but he felt heavy, his wounds weighing like chains on Derek’s wrists. 

“Derek,” Stiles muttered, and Derek’s eyes flitted down to see his bruised face for a moment before fixing on Deaton’s car. The headlights were lighting streaks through the dusk and shining circles on the wall of the distillery and the engine was still running. “Derek, I pissed my pants.”

He said it conspiratorially, and even through his pain Derek could hear the spark of laughter in his voice, the somewhat self-deprecating humor. The corner of his mouth twitched in amusement, but he refused to let it turn into a laugh while he was still carrying the tortured Stiles in his arms. 

“Yeah. I know. I can smell it.”

He heard Stiles frown, heard the pout in his response. “Tie a guy to a chair and torture him for eight hours, you can’t expect him to have full control of his bladder.” 

Derek rolled his eyes and Stiles chuckled to himself, and Scott and Allison ran past them to the car. Allison climbed into the front seat and Scott into the passenger seat beside her. Derek didn’t object; he carefully sat himself in the backseat and lay Stiles along the length of the three spaces, letting his head rest in Derek’s lap.

“Scott, call, the Sheriff,” Derek ordered. “Tell him to meet us at the hospital. That Stiles is going to be alright.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Scott agreed as he tugged out his cell phone. Allison pulled out of the gravel lot and headed down the road back towards town. “And I’ll call mom and tell her to get ready for him.”

“You all better be talking about the awesome Welcome Home party you’ve planned for me,” Stiles muttered drowsily. “I’m expecting curly fries when I wake up.” His eyes rolled back and his eyelids fluttered shut, his jaw falling slack. 

Stiles was unconscious but not in danger. His head tilted down, Derek gazed at Stiles’ slackened, bruised face. He moved his fingers to gingerly wipe a drizzle of blood from the corner of Stiles’ mouth. His hands were shaking as he felt the warmth of Stiles’ cheek. His eyes flickered to Stiles’ feet and saw that a piece of the shoelace of his right shoe had been broken off. The bit of shoelace in Derek’s pocket burned.

Angela had said that the Hunters had gotten all they needed out of Stiles. What had Stiles been forced to tell them? Derek tried not to be worried, he tried to trust that Stiles had done only what he had to do to protect himself, but he was couldn’t help the niggling voice in the back of his head whispering _You might have to run away again._  

He texted Isaac telling him to stay out of Derek’s flat for now. After Stiles had been treated, when he woke up, Derek would have to ask him what he’d told the Hunters. And then Derek would know if it was safe to go home. 

When Derek carried Stiles into the Emergency Room forty minutes later, Melissa was waiting behind the reception desk and Sheriff Stilinski was standing anxiously beside her. They saw Derek and Scott and Stiles in Derek’s arms and immediately moved into action. Well, Melissa did, her expression sliding into detached-nurse mode. The Sheriff was wringing his hands and moved quickly up to his son, reaching out a hand to run it gently along Stiles’ forehead, brushing back his hair, which was plastered to his skull with dried blood. The Sheriff’s eyebrows drew together, his eyes glistening. He looked up and stared straight into Derek’s eyes. He nodded to him, his chin trembling even as he tensed his jaw.

“Thank you,” he managed, “For finding my son.” 

“Excuse me, Sheriff, Mr. Hale, we need to get Stiles into the operating room. He may have internal bleeding. Please, Derek, lay him on this gurney.”

Derek allowed Melissa McCall to help him rest the unconscious Stiles across the padded gurney. Then he clenched his fists and tried not to get on all fours and run after him and Melissa and the other nurses as they rolled him away. He found that controlling the more animalistic of his werewolf impulses was even more difficult around a hurt Stiles than around a group of psychotic Hunters, and it maybe scared him, just a little bit, not that he’d let anyone see. Derek Hale didn’t have any weaknesses, especially not around annoying, sarcastic humans that wheedled their ways into Derek’s life like completely intentionally obnoxious squirrels. Intentionally obnoxious squirrels with frightening protective fathers that knew very well how to handle guns.

Derek didn’t want to dwell on the Sheriff’s impressive handling of his police-issued firearms, especially not when Stiles was unconscious and bloody somewhere where Derek couldn’t cuddle him and lick his wounds. Not that he would. Even if he was actually a wolf. Cuddling and wound-licking was strictly reserved for people who didn’t make Derek frustrated at every opportunity. Therefore, Scott, Isaac, Peter, and _especially_ Stiles were out of luck in that area. Not that anyone else was in luck. 

He didn’t like the headspace he went to when Stiles was injured.

He felt a presence at his side and sniffed to find Scott a step behind him and to his left, staring into the empty hallway that Melissa had rolled Stiles into. 

“You know,” Scott said quietly. “I wasn’t exactly expecting you to rush to help me find Stiles.” Derek turned to him and cocked an eyebrow. Scott remained staring straight down the hallway, eyes dark. 

“Well, I couldn’t just let some Hunter get away with hurting a human from my territory,” Derek shrugged. Allison walked up to stop at Scott’s side and she visibly rolled her eyes.

“Now isn’t that just the perfect example of manly avoidance,” she muttered under her breath, although Derek knew that she was perfectly aware that both he and Scott could hear her. She turned to look at Derek. “We all know you didn’t do it to get back at a Hunter. You tried to save Stiles because you wanted to save Stiles.” 

Derek pulled his eyes away from Allison’s piercingly enigmatic gaze and stuffed his hands into his pockets. His fingers brushed against Stiles’ shoelace. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Well, he’s helped out a lot in the past. On research and stuff.”

He heard Allison sigh in tired frustration and Scott huffed a laugh. 

“We all know Stiles is my emissary,” Scott said, sounding a bit rueful. “But he’s your beta.”

Derek shifted uncomfortably. “He’s not my beta.” 

“I think you’ll have a hard time trying to convince him of that,” Sheriff Stilinski said with a touch of humor, a touch of reluctant acceptance. Scott, Allison and Derek turned around to see him still standing by the ER front desk, his hands held at his sides, his right hand twitching unconsciously towards his holster every few moments. Derek understood the subconscious reflex. When Derek was stressed, when he had something he needed to fix, he had to fight for control of his claws. Obviously when the Sheriff felt he had something to fix, he reached for his gun. And right then, the Sheriff desperately needed to fix his son, who was unconscious and bleeding somewhere in the hospital with knife wounds and burns and broken bones.

He may have been frightened of Sheriff Stilinski’s unwavering protective attack-and-defend instinct when it came to his son, but Derek also admired it. 

“Sheriff Stilinski,” Derek said stiffly. “Um, I, your son, he isn’t…”

“I think what he is, or isn’t, is completely out of your control, son,” the Sheriff said tiredly, although with a fond smile. “You parent a boy like Stiles for seventeen years, you get to know him pretty well. Believe me.” He raised his hand to the back of his neck, something to keep it busy since it couldn’t draw his gun. “If he’s decided he’s in your… pack… Well, I don’t think there’s a thing you could do to convince him otherwise.” Then the Sheriff’s eyes were hard, cold and unwavering as he connected gazes with Derek. “And I don’t expect you to, after what’s been done to him because of it.” 

Derek felt his stomach lurch at the Sheriff’s words, and something primal in him was tugging at his gut to _go find Stiles._ Instead, he nodded curtly, and Sheriff Stilinski nodded in acceptance and then held out his hand towards Allison and Scott in a gesture that seemed both fatherly and professional in an officer-of-the-law kind of way.

“Come on, Scott, Allison, I’m going to drive you two home. You should get some rest. Let your friends know that Stiles is okay. If your parents say it’s alright, you can come back to visit Stiles when he wakes up.” 

Scott and Allison followed him without argument. The Sheriff patted Scott’s back and tugged him into a comforting hug for a moment before releasing him and turning towards Derek.

“Derek, you’re an adult, I can’t make you do anything. Stay here and wait if you want, but I’d recommend you go back home and get some sleep as well. I’ll have someone contact you if you’re not here when Stiles is ready for visitors.” 

Derek nodded silently at the Sheriff’s words and watched as Sheriff Stilinski guided Scott and Allison out of the hospital and towards his cruiser. Then he walked over to an uncomfortable-looking chair next to a table stacked with outdated magazines and sat down with his elbows on his knees. He’d wait there until Stiles woke up. Stiles had just suffered through hours of torture, all because he was associated with Derek. The least Derek could do was sit in an uncomfortable chair until he could tell Stiles he was sorry.

 

 [ . . . ]

 

It turned out that when a minor regained consciousness from surgical procedures, only their guardians were allowed to see them at first. Derek, who had been waiting in the uncomfortable chair for upwards of six hours, continued to sit as he waited, ears straining. The Sheriff was in Stiles’ hospital room, and the hair on the back of Derek’s neck was prickling with the effort it took him not to get up and go there himself. But Melissa had very pointedly told him that Stiles wouldn’t be receiving non-familial visitors for at least another couple hours.

A woman in a wrinkled green dress passed Derek on her way across the room to the vending machines. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes and sped up her pace a bit. Derek sighed and tightened his crossed arms. At first, he’d tried to read a magazine, but he hadn’t been able to concentrate. Then, he’d tried to pretend to read a magazine simply for the sake of looking busy and not like he was waiting for hours in a hospital to visit an underage boy who had recently gotten tortured because of him. But his arms had gotten tired, and his eyes had watered from staring at the same picture of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West for thirty minutes.

So he had settled for crossing his arms and glaring at the wall opposite him, in a way that appeared as least threatening as possible. It wasn’t his fault if his scowl tended to put people on edge, or that his eyes seemed to reflect barely stifled rage most of the time. Or that, when stressed, he exuded an aura of _Run prey run_ that seemed to frighten people away. 

The woman scurried past him back to her own seat, and Derek ignored her in favor of the wall. He would wait. Just a couple of hours. 

In the silence of the waiting room, Derek had nothing to do but think. Think about Isaac and what would happen to him if Derek had to leave Beacon Hills. Wondering if Isaac would leave with him, or if he would stay behind with Scott and Allison and his foster parents.

He thought about Stiles and how much pain the Hunters had put him through. He wondered how long it had taken for Stiles to break down and talk. Had it taken thirty minutes? Had it taken hours? He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out. 

His gut was twisting uncomfortable and there was a knot in his throat. He thought about the visceral reaction he’d had to hearing that the Hunters had taken Stiles, and the piece of Stiles’ shoelace in his pocket that was steadily burning its way through the fabric of his clothes and leaving a mark on his skin. Derek blinked, staring at the floor, and gritted his teeth at the memory of Angela Arbor’s fingers curled in Stiles’ hair. Of Stiles' blood wet on his fingers.

He had thought that he didn’t have any weaknesses, especially around Stiles. He wondered if maybe that wasn’t entirely true. 

(If maybe it was entirely opposite.)

Because he knew one thing for absolute certain. And that was that, if he ever saw Angela Arbor again, after a few short minutes alone together there would be no more Angela Arbor. Just very small pieces of what was once a vile person.

Two hours and forty minutes later, Sheriff Stilinski appeared at the end of the hall, spotted Derek, and walked towards him. Immediately, Derek stood up from the seat and, almost as quickly, realized that his butt was completely numb. He grimaced as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, thinking to himself that being a werewolf should make numb body parts not a thing. 

“Derek,” the Sheriff nodded to him. He looked tired and pale, there were bags under his eyes, and he looked troubled. But also relieved. “Stiles wants to talk to you.”

Derek nodded. He cleared his throat. “Is he..?” 

Sheriff Stilinski nodded, running his hand down his face and shifting his shoulders in what could be considered a shrug. “He’s not in any danger,” he told him. “I talked to the doctor, and Melissa helped translate a bit. Most of the injuries are superficial. A lot of bludgeoning and cutting and burning, nothing life threatening. They were… they were milking him for pain more than anything.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath, his shoulders rising and falling. Derek clenched his hands into fists, his knuckles cracking. He felt his claws prick into his palms. 

“There are some broken bones. His hands, mostly.” The Sheriff flexed his own fingers unconsciously. “He has a couple cracked ribs and his nose is broken, but otherwise…” He shrugged again and ran his hand through unkempt hair. “Melissa had been worried about internal bleeding, but the doctor said it looked like those fuckers knew what they were doing and how to keep a captive alive.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Derek said, making eye contact with the Sheriff. He didn’t know what he could say. Nothing he could do would make Stiles disappear from his hospital room and reappear, perfectly healthy, in his own bed.

“No, no,” Sheriff Stilinski said, shaking his head. “It wasn’t your fault. Stiles… My son didn’t enter your line of work on a whim, Derek. He’s not an idiot. Sometimes he acts like one,” he amended, “But he’s smart. Stiles may be impulsive, but he damn well didn’t join your pack just for laughs. I hate to say this, but I think he knew something like this was going to happen eventually.” 

The Sheriff gave a half-hearted laugh. He lifted one arm and clapped Derek awkwardly on the shoulder. 

“Anyway, Derek, I promised Scott I’d pick him up to come visit Stiles. You can go ahead and see him now.”

The Sheriff walked away, leaving Derek to follow the scent trail back where he’d come, all the way to Stiles’ room where the door was closed. He took a breath, hand hovering over the doorknob, before steeling himself and entering. 

Stiles was lying in his hospital bed, propped up by several pillows. There was an IV drip several feet away from the bed, the needle protruding from his bruised forearm. The clear fluid in the drip was obviously for the pain. Morphine, probably. 

The purple and red and blue bruises littering what Derek could see of Stiles’ limbs were large, swollen, and numerous. Stiles’ face was a mess, one eye swollen shut, his jaw looking out of line with a large, swollen purple bruise on one side. His lip was swollen and scabbed with blood, his nose was taped thickly with gauze.

He grinned at Derek, gesturing him forward with one of his hands, both of which were heavily wrapped. It looked like he was wearing mittens made out of bandages.

“Dude, stop staring at me with that constipated expression of self-loathing,” Stiles cracked. His voice was rough and Derek knew it was from screaming. He made his feet move over to the side of Stiles’ bed, and his eyes ran up and down each of Stiles’ arms. The cuts were stitched and covered with non-stick bandages, as were those on his legs. He couldn’t see his chest or stomach because of the thin hospital robe, but he could imagine the bandaging that cracked ribs would necessitate for a human and it made his heart thud uncomfortably. 

“What about the burns?” Derek asked, his tongue heavy and dry. Stiles made a face and shifted a bit.

“They had me on ice for a while,” he said. “But I didn't need skin grafts or anything. Now there’s just a lot of slimy ointment and bandages.” 

“I’m sorry.” Derek stared into Stiles’ working eye and tried to communicate everything through their connected gaze.

Stiles shrugged. “Dude, I’m just sorry you had to smell that. I don’t have werewolf senses and _I_ almost hurled. I’m telling you, if we’re ever stranded together on a snow-covered mountain with no source of food? I’m not about to be smelling my own skin cooking again anytime soon, so watch your back.”

Derek cast his eyes to the ground, recalling with revulsion the scent of burnt flesh that had been so ingrained into his memory for years. It had been one he’d never wanted to smell on a person he loved again. 

“I am sorry, though.”

Derek was surprised to see Stiles roll his eyes. He glared at Derek contemplatively. “Nothing for you to be sorry about,” he said. “You weren’t the one torturing me.” 

Derek felt a head rush at the term. Stiles had been _tortured_. For _information_. That, according to Angela, he had _given_.

He didn’t want to ask. But he knew he had to. 

But Stiles seemed to have caught something in his expression, and his wry smile fell, his eyebrows drawing together.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking. He squeezed his eye shut and took a deep breath. “I just… they did it, for _hours_. I didn’t want… but I couldn’t anymore, I…” 

Derek put his hand out, intending to squeeze Stiles’ shoulder reassuringly, _something_ , but he stopped, hand hovering inches from Stiles’ skin. He didn’t want to hurt him. 

“It’s alright, Stiles,” he said gruffly. “It’s just… I need to know. I need to know what they know.”

Stiles nodded, grimacing, and opened his eye, staring into Derek’s gaze.

“They asked me where you lived. They asked… they asked me who the ‘wolves in your pack were. They asked about… about ways to keep you trapped, and your weaknesses, and…” 

Derek pulled his eyes away from Stiles’ imploring expression, feeling his gut clenching. Hunters knew where he lived. Hunters knew how to trap him, how to hurt him. He couldn’t… he couldn’t stay anymore.

“Derek, I’m sorry,” Stiles breathed. There was a weird tone to his voice that Derek couldn’t pinpoint. “I told them. I told them about your secret cabin in the woods, and your apartment in Sacramento.” 

Derek froze. He furrowed his eyebrows and looked back at Stiles, whose expression was one of twisted sorrow and apology, but whose eye was sparkling.

“I don’t have a secret cabin or an apartment in Sacramento,” Derek said slowly. The corner of Stiles’ mouth twitched. Derek’s heart was pounding in his chest, and he could have sworn that Stiles could hear every thump, even with him not being a werewolf. 

“And I told them about how circles of wormwood could keep werewolves from crossing.”

There was a long silence. “Not wormwood,” Derek said. “Mountain ash.” 

Stiles was smiling now. “And I told them about your betas, the ones looking for allies in Oregon and Utah.”

Now Derek was looking at an openly grinning Stiles. His smile was pulling at his split lip, and Derek saw a bead of blood well up, and gulped as Stiles’ tongue flicked out to lick it away. 

“I told them a bunch of other things, but those are the highlights.” Stiles wiggled his eyebrows. Derek felt himself growing faint at his grin, at how Stiles’ heart was beating heavily not in fear or anxiety, but in honest-to-god _humor_. “That was the info that got them the most excited. I swear, Angela nearly fainted in delight when I told her about wormwood circles.” 

Derek shook his head in disbelief. “You… you’re…”

“A badass motherfucker? Don’t worry, I know. You don’t have to say it.” 

“They tortured you for… for…”

“About four hours in,” Stiles said, leaning in confidentially, “I decided to test the waters and see if they would listen to somewhat _realistic_ -sounding bullshit. They ate it up if I cried and begged enough beforehand.”

His legs were weak and shaky. Derek stumbled back, searching for a chair, and sank into it. He buried his face in his hands for a moment, before dragging his fingers down and looking back up at Stiles, who was looking extremely pleased with himself. Derek couldn’t help the feeling that stirred in his gut.

“What, did you think I was going to actually tell those sons of bitches anything?” he asked. Derek shook his head in actual wonder.

“I guess I should have known better,” he said, and Stiles nodded. 

“Damn straight.”

The bit of shoelace in his pocket felt warm. Derek stuffed his hand into his pocket, gripping it loosely, and allowed himself to smile. 

He didn’t feel guilty about it, not with Stiles grinning at him in return.

 

[ . . . ]

 

Stiles stood up in the hospital room, staring at his bare chest. They were redressing the bandages one more time before he was allowed to go home, and he had finally been allowed to stand up, and consequentially was looking at the damage to his torso for the first time.

“Dude,” he said, staring at the word carved under his clavicles. Some of the letters had been stitched, some had been allowed to scab over by themselves, but they were all clearly legible. “What the fuck does that even _mean?”_  

Scott was looking in the mirror at it over Stiles’ shoulder, his brows drawn together in concentration. “I’ve never seen it before.” 

Allison was standing near Stiles’ hospital bed, helping Melissa gather the sheets and blankets for washing. She glanced to the mirror and her lips tightened in disapproval.

“It’s a word that some Hunters use,” she started carefully, “In reference to humans that associate themselves with werewolves.” 

Stiles continued to stare into the mirror, poking around the outside of the cuts with the forefinger of his left hand, which was one of the few that wasn’t broken. “So it’s like the Hunter equivalent of ‘blood-traitor’ or ‘mudblood’ or something?”

Allison’s face flickered and she let out a small laugh. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” 

Stiles huffed at his reflection, continuing to poke around the stitches of the ‘r’.

“I’m still a virgin,” he pouted. “I’m not allowed to have the word ‘whore’ anywhere on my person.” 

“You could always get a tattoo,” Scott suggested earnestly. Stiles rolled his eyes and continued to stare at the word, reflected backwards in the mirror. _Werewhore_.

“Yeah, in like two years when I move out of the house. Until then, what are the guys on the team gonna think?” 

Scott shrugged. “It’s not like you walk around the locker room flaunting your stuff or anything. You usually, like, hide in your locker when you change.”

Affronted, Stiles protested. “I do not _hide_ in my locker!” 

“You do. You’re like a contortionist. You practically curl up inside the locker so no one can see you with your shirt off.”

Stiles turned and punched Scott on the shoulder. “Whatever, dude, it’s not my fault I’m the only flabby belly amongst a sea of fucking twelve-packs. You can’t talk.” 

Scott laughed and shrugged away from Stiles’ fist. “Hey, I work out. And I don’t eat French fries every day.”

Jabbing a finger towards Scott, Stiles objected, “Your ridiculous abs are entirely the product of your lycanthropy. And starches are an important part of a healthy diet.” 

He turned back to the mirror. “What the fuck does ‘werewhore’ mean, anyway? I mean, what, do I transform into a raging nymphomaniac once a month?”

“I think it’s supposed to imply that you, um, do certain things to remain in the pack’s favor,” Allison supplied. Stiles groaned. 

“I’m offended. Like I’d do anything with Scott. I have my self-respect.”

“Hey!” Scott objected, and Stiles laughed. 

“Like you’re surprised.”

Scott narrowed his eyes. “What about Derek?” he asked, and Stiles spluttered, staring at Scott’s ridiculously obnoxious smile in disbelief. 

Melissa slapped Scott away and taped gauze across the healing word etched into his chest and the burns on Stiles’ back, then continued to do the same with the cuts across his arms and legs, and tightly wrapped his ribs.

“Don’t pick at them this time, Stiles,” she told him. Stiles put his right hand over his heart, the white cast scratching against the gauze. 

“Scout’s honor.”

Melissa rolled her eyes and gestured to Scott and Allison. “Come on, you two. You can wait in the lobby. The doctor has to check Stiles one more time before he leaves.” 

Scott gave him a grin and a pat on the back and Allison smiled before Melissa guided them out of the room. Stiles moved towards the counter where the sink was located and upon which his change of clothes was resting. He pouted, Scott’s implication about Derek echoing in his head as he grabbed the flannel shirt and maneuvered his arms through the sleeves. It was a light shirt and didn’t put too much pressure on his back or arms, but damn, was it hard to do buttons when the majority of your fingers were broken and in splints. 

The door opened behind him and Stiles turned, expecting to see the doctor. Instead, Derek was standing in the doorway.

“Can I..?” he asked, and Stiles nodded, flushing, relieved that _werewhore_ was now hidden under his bandages, because no _way_ did he want Derek to see that. Especially not with Scott’s words still in his brain. He tried to shove them back, but they jostled all other thoughts to the recesses of his mind. _What about Derek?_ they squealed silently, punching away any objections that his mind managed to half-form. _What do you think he’s going to say when he sees you with your shirt off one day?_

Stiles scoffed. That was so never gonna happen, like, ever. He didn’t think he could bear Derek’s reaction, whatever it would be. He would probably either snort in derision, or curl up and cry with self-inflicted guilt. 

“Yeah, come in,” he stammered. Derek shut the door and entered the room, his eyes flickering from the now-empty hospital bed to Stiles’ hands, which were having an obvious amount of difficulty buttoning his shirt. Especially with the turmoil jumbling in his mind at that moment.

Derek stood near the bed, watching Stiles struggle. He opened his mouth a few times, but no words left his lips. 

“Yeah?” Stiles prodded, managing the first button. Derek glanced up at him.

“Sorry I haven’t visited you again since you woke up,” he said. “I had to make sure the Hunters were gone. Chris Argent has been looking into having them tried for torturing you at some kind of Hunter council.” 

Stiles nodded. “Yeah, Allison told me.”

Derek’s feet shifted and he took a hesitant step towards Stiles. Stiles grinned at his hesitation. It was maybe a little adorable. “Your Jeep is in your driveway,” he said. “Scott brought your backpack and stuff into your room.” 

Stiles nodded again, smiling. “Yeah, Scott told me. Anything _you_ want to tell me?”

Derek tensed his jaw and found his hand unconsciously straying to his pocket, where Stiles’ shoelace was still held. 

“Thanks,” he finally managed. “For not telling them anything. It was… it was really strong, of you, to do that.” He stared at Stiles’ fingers still struggling with the buttons of his shirt and stepped forward, reaching out and gently pushing Stiles’ hands aside to button up the shirt himself.

Stiles felt the word scarred into his chest tingling.

The space between them felt hot, and Derek knew his ears were red. He focused intently on Stiles’ buttons, not wanting to look at his face.

Stiles shrugged, trying to go for casual and probably failing, and Derek heard his heart flutter, his breaths stuttering. “I mean, I wasn’t going to tell my enemy what my friend’s weaknesses were.” 

Still gazing intently at the buttons, Derek squared his shoulders. “It’s a good thing, too,” he said, his head light and his words sounding fuzzy. “They… they already had one of mine.”

Stiles’ heart skipped a beat, and Derek slowly raised his eyes to Stiles’ face. Stiles’ lips were parted slightly, and Derek flushed as he watched Stiles’ tongue flick out to wet them. “What… what do you mean?” 

Derek shrugged uncomfortably. “They had one of my weaknesses. It’s a good thing they didn’t realize it, or… or who knows what else they would have done.”

Stiles gaze felt intense as he stared into Derek’s eyes. “Yeah?” 

Derek swallowed nervously. “Yeah,” he whispered.

His hands were frozen, the top three buttons of Stiles’ shirt still undone. He could feel Stiles’ chest rising and falling with every breath. 

Stiles was the one who broke the gaze, turning his face down to look at Derek’s fingers clutching at his collar. He knew his face was red. “Don’t strain yourself, alpha. Three more buttons to go.”

Derek could hear him smiling. 

His hands shook as he finished buttoning Stiles’ plaid shirt, and after a moment in which he held his hands at Stiles’ collar, feeling the fluttering of Stiles’ pulse in his neck, he stepped back and let his hands hang limply at his sides.

“Thanks, dude,” Stiles said, waving his disabled hands in front of him. “Couldn’t have done it without you.” 

“No problem,” Derek squeaked. Then he cursed the fact that he, scary alpha werewolf, was even able to squeak. Stiles laughed, though, and Derek smiled too, because Stiles really looked happy. His limbs were wrapped in gauze, his back had been burned, his face was beaten and bruised and he had a word scarred into his chest, but he was genuinely happy.

When the doctor entered the room, Derek awkwardly excused himself, and as he exited the room, he accidentally banged his right shoulder into the doorframe. He cursed and apologized and left, and a few moments after he had disappeared from Stiles’ vision, Stiles heard him trip over the chair in the hallway and Stiles laughed, knowing that Derek could hear him.

The doctor asked Stiles a couple mandatory questions about his pain level and if he was feeling any discomfort. Then she proceeded to remind Stiles the proper way to change his bandages and what to do if he popped any stitches. 

Stiles wasn’t paying attention. He already knew all of it. He gave the expected responses to any questions and nodded, but all the while he was remembering the feel of Derek’s fingers at his throat and the way Derek’s ears had turned red as he struggled to tell Stiles that _he was Derek’s weakness_. 

Stiles had inserted himself into the pack. He’d done his fair share of research and even helped out with the fighting on some occasions. Stiles had sort of decided that he was a member of the pack, and that Derek definitely had some sort of grudging acceptance of that fact, but hell, he’d never assumed that he was one of Derek’s _weaknesses_. He grinned.

When the doctor had accepted that Stiles wasn’t about to tear out his stitches the second he walked out of the hospital exit, she left and returned with his dad, who smiled and held out his arms for a hug. Stiles accepted it, awkwardly arranging his casts around the Sheriff’s back and grinning hard, pulling on his split lip but ignoring the twinge of pain.

“I’m assuming I’m not driving,” he said when they had pulled away from each other.

His father nodded. 

“We’re keeping you out of the driver’s seat until you get those casts off, alright?” he sid, smiling. Stiles shrugged.

“Can’t argue with that.” 

They left the room and walked through the hallways, the Sheriff’s arm around Stiles’ shoulder.

Scott was waiting for them, grinning, in the lobby. Allison had driven home, but Scott and Melissa were going to be having dinner at the Stilinski house, because Stiles obviously couldn’t cook and he wasn’t about to force himself to eat his any of his dad’s pitiful attempts at a meal. They really could have gotten take-out, but Stiles had been looking forward to a home-cooked meal after all of the hospital slop.  

“I just saw Derek leave a couple minutes ago,” Scott told Stiles as he walked beside him to Sheriff Stilinski’s cruiser. “He smells like your shoe. I think he still has your shoelace in his pocket.”

Stiles had been told about how Allison, Scott, and Derek had managed to get to the Silver Leaf Hotel to find him, but had been attacked and overpowered before he could be rescued. But no one had mentioned the shoelace he’d left in the Circle-K parking lot. 

“My shoelace? You mean he found it?” Stiles brightened visibly. He elbowed Scott in the ribs. “Pretty smart, huh?”

Scott nodded. “Yeah, I guess, but I would never have figured it out. That was all Derek.” 

Scott gave Stiles his lopsided grin and Stiles smiled back. His dad unlocked the cruiser.

Stiles stared down at his shoe, looking at the missing piece of shoelace. Derek still had it. Derek was keeping Stiles’ shoelace in his pocket. It could be interpreted as gross or weird or even slightly stalkerish, sure, but still. 

Because Stiles distinctly remembered Derek’s hand straying into his pocket whenever he was getting upset or nervous. It meant something. It obviously meant something.

And _he was Derek Hale’s weakness._  

Stiles grinned to himself, wondering how uncomfortable Derek would be if he invited him to dinner.

And maybe one day, Derek _would_ see Stiles with his shirt off. And, maybe, instead of laughing or crying, he would _blush_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks dearly for reading. 
> 
> Once again, feedback is appreciated.


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